Student-founded SurgePower explores innovative realm of nanomaterials

Student Achievements​​​​​​​

Jayme Blaschke | August 23, 2018

SurgePower team
<div class="newscaption">SurgePower Materials team members (left to right) Babatunde Adebiyi, Palak Modi, Dr. Michael Opoku and Grace Luangisa </div>

A multidisciplinary team of Texas State University students behind the company SurgePower Materials have garnered international attention for its innovative work with carbon-based nanomaterials. 

The team—and its SurgePower research—was invited to participate in the prestigious Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC) in the spring of this year, where it competed against teams from Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, Carnegie-Mellon, Cornell, UCLA, Yale, Duke, John Hopkins and the University of Texas at Austin. The team consisted of  Michael Opoku and Babatunde Adebiyi from the Materials Science, Engineering and Commercialization Ph.D. program, Grace Luangisa from the McCoy College of Business Administration, and Palak Modi from the School of Art and Design's Master of Fine Arts communication design program.

SurgePower was just the third Texas State team invited to the prestigious RBPC. Previously, Texas State's TX2O team competed in 2017, and the SioTeX team won the Texas Halo Fund Investment Prize in 2014. 

SurgePower came away from the competition with significant investor interest in its SP2Hybrid technology, which yields longer-lasting batteries that can be charged in one-tenth the time of current batteries. The team's green technology utilizes a cost-effective and eco-friendly process to produce high purity graphene from a renewable resource. Graphene nanomaterial is increasingly important as a crucial raw material in the development of advanced batteries.

Opuku now serves as president and CEO of SurgePower Materials, with Adebiyi as CTO and Modi as creative director. Under their guidance, the company is positioned to further develop and commercialize production of specialty carbon-based nanomaterials, redefine the graphene market, and become a leader in the global graphene market. 

For more information, visit surgepowermaterials.com.


For more information, contact University Communications:

Jayme Blaschke, 512-245-2555

Sandy Pantlik, 512-245-2922