Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao

Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao is PhD student at Cornell known for his project HI-Light that converts CO2 into fuel such as syngas or methanol.
Education
Xi’an Jiaotong University
Cao obtained his joint Bachelor of Engineering and Bachelor of Arts in Energy and Power, and English Literature in 2013 from Xi'an Jiaotong University, China.
McGill University
In 2014, Cao started studying at McGill University towards Master of Engineering in Materials Engineering with a joint training by MIT during his last year. He worked in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering along with Professor Michael Short & Professor Matteo Bucci, on developing ways to prevent accidents such as the Fukushima nuclear disaster from 2011. At McGill, he worked under the supervision Professor Roderick Guthrie & Dr. Mihaiela Isac, on developing a way to detect micro-bubbles enabling a clean steel production.
Cornell University
Cao is currently earning his PhD at Cornell University and working in the Erickson Lab, which is led by Prof. David Erickson, at the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He is majoring in Micro and Nanoscale Engineering with minors in Energy and Sustainability, Infection and Immunity, and Entrepreneurship. His thesis is on HI-Light - A new way of converting CO2 into fuels. He is also working on FeverPhone, a smartphone that can detect six acute febrile illness.
HI-Light
HI-Light is a project being developed by Cao during his PhD. Cao is working with Prof. David Erickson, the Mechanical Engineering professor in charge of the Erickson Lab and Tobias Hanrath, another professor of Cornell and a private company Dimensional Energy. HI-Light is a solar thermal chemical reactor technology for converting CO2 with water to hydrocarbons such as methanol. The reactor consists of tubes to guide the light into the reactor that acts as a photothermal catalyst thus allowing faster reaction rates and selectivity of higher hydrocarbons. This technique could reduce the carbon footprint of producing fossil carbon and use the carbon waste already present in our atmosphere. It was mentioned by Cao during an interview that another possible application for HI-Light could be to produce fuel on Mars, as there is a lot of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere thus maybe enabling people to go to Mars.
FeverPhone
FeverPhone is a portable disease diagnosis kit to work with a smartphone or a tablet enabling a differential diagnosis of acute febrile illnesses such as Dengue, Malaria and others in less than 15 minutes, when in the US it can take one day to get the results and in some countries they can't tell the difference. One drop of blood is taken by finger stick and placed on a test strip which is then inserted in a portable station which can test for the following six diseases : Dengue, malaria, chagas, leptospirosis, chikungunya, typhoid. This new technology would be efficient and inexpensive making it very attractive for the countries mostly affected by those diseases, this is why some are working in Ecuador.
In 2016, National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering has awarded to Cornell a four-year, $2.3 million grant to develop FeverPhone.
Achievements
Future Energy Leader
In October 2019, Cao was name a Future Energy Leader by BP.
INK Fellow
In October 2019, Xiangkun Cao was selected as an INK fellow and spoke at INK Conference in 2019.
Honorable Mentions
Forbes 30 under 30
Cao was in Forbes 30 under 30 in 2019 in the Energy Category for his work on HI-Light.
AACYF Top 30 under 30
Cao is part of the All America Chinese Youth Federation Top 30 under 30, in 2019, for his work on both HI-Light and FeverPhone in the Art, Culture, Science domain.
EarthX 30 under 30: The Green Generation
In 2019, Cao was in EarthX 30 under 30: The Green Generation list.

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