‘Anna Douglas’

Meet Our Graduates: Anna Douglas

Jun. 22, 2023—While at Vanderbilt, Anna began her studies developing nanostructured materials that can improve the performance of energy storage devices including lithium and sodium ion batteries. During her graduate studies, Anna co-invented a novel electrochemical synthesis method to produce high quality carbon nanotubes from carbon dioxide, and subsequently spun out a startup company called SkyNano in...

Anna Douglas – Engineering – Olin. Anna Douglas is a PhD student who has received a prestigious (and not yet publicly announced) award to work at ORNL on SkyNano, a company based on technology she developed that could make the manufacture of single-walled carbon nanotubes easier and cheaper. Production now requires expensive equipment and controlled conditions, resulting in a final product that sells for $900/gram and makes widespread adoption cost prohibitive. She is one of five entrepreneurs picked for Innovation Crossroads, at ORNL for the first time, and is the only one who does not already have her PhD. The fellowship covers living costs, benefits, travel and up to $350,000 in research costs for up to 2 years to use on collaborative research in clean energy innovations.

Anna's technology takes carbon dioxide out the ambient air to produce high-value carbon nanotubes, which have applications in electronics, aerospace, medical devices, drug delivery, shielding, sensors, etc. The material has great strength and less weight than typical composites. It has great conductivity and can withstand high heat and pressure. Single-walled carbon nanotubes, if successfully commercialized at a larger scale, could be the foundation for nextgen electronics. Anna and Professor Cary Pint believe her system could produce SWCN for less than $1/gram. They formed SkyNano - Anna is the CEO and deferring her NSF fellowship to work on scaling it to a product line. For Engineering School website, likely Research News at Vanderbilt and possible outside media. Photo by Joe Howell

Meet Our Graduates: Anna Douglas

Jan. 25, 2022—Anna Douglas earned her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Materials Science at Vanderbilt University in 2019. While at Vanderbilt, Anna began her studies developing nanostructured materials that can improve the performance of energy storage devices including lithium and sodium ion batteries. During her graduate studies, Anna co-invented a novel electrochemical synthesis method to produce high quality carbon nanotubes from...

New method to fashion cheap, small carbon nanotubes ‘could change the world,’ Pint says

May. 24, 2018—Imagine a box you plug into the wall that cleans your toxic air and pays you cash. That’s essentially what Vanderbilt University researchers produced after discovering the blueprint for turning the carbon dioxide into the most valuable material ever sold – carbon nanotubes with small diameters. Cary Pint (Vanderbilt University) Carbon nanotubes are supermaterials that...

IMS graduate student Anna Douglas selected for prestigious entrepreneurship program

Jun. 7, 2017—An interdisciplinary materials science graduate student has been selected for a prestigious entrepreneurship program to scale and commercialize a revolutionary method of carbon nanotube production. Anna Douglas is one of five entrepreneurs selected for the inaugural cohort of the Department of Energy Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The accelerator program includes...

Quantum dots made from fool’s gold boost battery performance

Nov. 11, 2015—If you add quantum dots – nanocrystals 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair – to a smartphone battery it will charge in 30 seconds, but the effect only lasts for a few recharge cycles. However, a group of researchers at Vanderbilt University report in the Nov. 11 issue of the journal ACS Nano that they...