Davidson School of Chemical Engineering undergraduate student Takashi Yokokura received second place at the recent 2019 AIChE Annual Student Conference Undergraduate Poster Competition in the Materials Engineering and Sciences Division. The competition was held on Monday, November 11, as part of the 2019 AIChE Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.

Yokokura’s research poster, “Waste Biomass-derived Anode for Application in Lithium-ion Batteries,” presented a novel anode synthesized from avocado seeds for a lithium-ion battery that either matches or exhibits superior performance when compared to the current commercial graphite anode.

Yokokura (pictured left) conducted his research under the supervision of Dr. Vilas Pol, Associate Professor in the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering. His laboratory research supervisor is Dr. Jassiel Rodriguez, a postdoctoral fellow.

The AIChE Annual Student Conference is four days of career information, social events, and competitions. Student engineers celebrate the chemical engineering profession, along with young professional members, AIChE leaders, and industry professionals from numerous engineering specialties.

Attendance at the 2019 AIChE Annual Student Conference was supported by funding from the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering. The Purdue AIChE student chapter was represented by 24 attending students. Four ChE students, including Yokokura, presented at the poster competition.

Learn more about the American Institute of Chemical Engineers at https://www.aiche.org/.

Learn more about the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering at https://engineering.purdue.edu/ChE.

Pictured from left: Thao Nguyen, Vaidehi Apte, Aubrey Quigley, and Takashi Yokokura.