Stillage is being turned into electrodes in Kentucky, US. Kentucky’s bourbon whiskey boom leaves behind a huge amount of waste grain called stillage. Now, that waste is being recycled into an energy-storage material that could be part of future commercial electronics.
Researchers at the University of Kentucky will present the sustainable solution at the ACS Spring 2026 meeting.
This project offers an alternative to a byproduct that distilleries currently find difficult and expensive to manage.
It shows that bourbon byproducts can produce supercapacitors with superior storage capacity compared to existing commercial models.
“From the final volume of bourbon produced, you get 6 to 10 times that amount of stillage as waste. So it’s a big deal,” said Barrios Cossio, a graduate student associated with the project.
To read more, click here.