OpenAI Says Bye Disney, Hello Business - DTNS 5233

March 25, 2026·30 min

First, yes, bourbon has leftovers. This brief is about stillage, also called green mash, the grain-heavy stuff left after bourbon making. Not glamorous, but apparently useful. University of Kentucky chemists found a way to turn it into electrodes for supercapacitors. The process starts with hydrothermal carbonization, described here as high-intensity pressure cooking. The mash turns into black powder. That powder gets heated to 200 degrees Celsius until it becomes hard carbon similar to graphite. Then potassium hydroxide comes in at 800 degrees Celsius to help make activated carbon. The performance claim is the eye-catcher. These grain-based supercapacitors are described as on par with existing commercial versions, and one lithium-ion-infused version is said to store 25 times the energy per kilogram of a conventional supercapacitor. So the story is simple enough: distillery waste becomes a possible storage material instead of production leftovers. The chemistry moves quickly, but the point lands without needing a materials science degree. Waste goes in, carbon materials come out, and the claim is strong enough to make this more than a neat bar trivia item. Scaling still needs economic study. Short, tidy, oddly satisfying science.

As heard by us

A bourbon-waste supercapacitor story that stays concrete and fast.

DTNS opens with an odd but grounded science story: University of Kentucky chemists turning bourbon waste, or stillage, into electrodes for supercapacitors.

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Why you'd press play

Bourbon waste becomes battery tech, with a 48-watt-per-kilogram payoff.

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