At Purdue, he leads a research team dedicated to advancing the current state of commercial energy storage technology such as upcycling plastic bags and packing peanuts into carbon spheres and carbon nanotube as anode electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries. In 2015, Prof. Pol and team were recognized by the R&D 100 Awards (Oscars of Invention) for their work on ‘Versatile Hard Carbon Microspheres Made from Plastic Waste’.