Most people don't spend much time thinking about graphite. But if you've charged an electric vehicle, used a smartphone, or benefited from clean energy fed into the grid, you've relied on it. Graphite is one of the most quietly essential materials in the modern energy transition — and the market is growing fast enough that "quietly essential" may not last much longer.
Plastic bottles could find new life in batteries as graphite jmm96@psu.edu Tue, 06/30/2026 - 11:57 June 30, 2026 A plastic bottle tossed into a recycling bin could one day help power an electric vehicle, smartphone or renewable energy storage system, according to a team of Penn State researchers. In a new study, researchers converted waste polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, into highly ordered s…
