Marcelo A. ANDRADE

Energy from Garbage – converting waste into high-value energy storage materials

After finishing my bachelor’s degree in Chemistry at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, where I had already worked with energy storage since 2017 as an undergraduate student, I enrolled in a 2-year-long Erasmus Mundus Master’s Degree “Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion”. Starting between three different European countries and finishing at Drexel University in the United States, this was the path that led me directly to the Destiny MSCA PhD program. My choice of topic was very objective: linking practical alternative energy storage solutions with sustainable development, while still exploring fundamental research related to both battery and supercapacitor technologies. Within this project, based at the renowned Institute of Materials of Nantes (IMN) and its secondment at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, I achieved a lot more than just directly repurposing spent wastewater adsorbents into a functional hybrid energy storage device. I have strengthened professional connections through regular program meetings, exchanged ideas with researchers globally at several international conferences, and, most importantly, further solidified my commitment to developing alternative, greener, and creative energy storage solutions.