The award
The Society for Science lists Parikh among the 2018 top winners with a $50,000 Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award, one of two given beneath the $75,000 Gordon E. Moore Award.
The project title is published in full and is unusually specific about materials, naming both the polymer and the inorganic component of the membrane. No abstract accompanies it, so the title is the extent of the technical record available here.
What a flow battery is
A vanadium redox flow battery stores energy in liquid electrolytes held in external tanks and pumped through a cell stack. Because capacity is set by tank size rather than by the cell itself, the design suits grid-scale storage, where a system may need to discharge for hours.
The membrane sits between the two electrolytes: it must let the charge-carrying ions through while keeping the vanadium species apart, and it is one of the costliest components of the system. SPEEK — sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) — is a polymer studied as an alternative to the standard fluorinated membranes; combining it with silicon dioxide through a sol-gel process is the composite named in Parikh's title. The source reports no measurements, and this page makes no performance claim.
The 2018 fair
Intel ISEF 2018 ran from 13 to 18 May at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, with nearly 1,800 young scientists selected from 420 affiliated fairs across more than 78 countries, regions and territories.
About 600 finalists received awards, including 22 Best of Category winners at $5,000 each, with $1,000 grants to their schools and affiliated fairs.
The rest of the 2018 podium
The Gordon E. Moore Award of $75,000 went to Oliver Nicholls, 19, of Sydney, for an autonomous window cleaning robot for commercial high-rise buildings.
The other $50,000 award went to Meghana Bollimpalli, 17, of Little Rock, Arkansas, for green-synthesised doped carbon materials for supercapacitors. Two of the three top projects that year addressed energy storage from different ends: one the electrode, the other the membrane.
What is documented — and what is not
The listing gives his name, age, home city, the award, its value and the project title. It names no school, no mentor and no laboratory, and publishes no data.
It also stops at the fair. No source used here reports his later studies or work, or whether the membrane research was published, patented or developed. His birth year is inferred from being 18 in May 2018 and is approximate.
Why grid storage attracts this work
Flow batteries are one of the few storage technologies suited to holding several hours of grid electricity, which is what intermittent wind and solar generation require. Their weakness has always been cost per kilowatt-hour, and membrane materials are a significant part of that cost.
That is the general reason membrane chemistry of this kind is an active research field. The documented fact about Parikh is narrower and firmer: a panel of judges at the world's largest pre-college science fair placed his entry among the three best of nearly 1,800.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sawsan Ahmed | United States | Broward College's youngest graduate, at 12, in December 2021 | Age 12 |
| Arvind Mahankali | United States | Won the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee at 13 | Age 13 |
| Kerry Close | United States | Won the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee at 13 | Age 13 |
| Shania Muhammad | United States | Langston University's youngest graduate, at 15 | Age 15 |
| Dhruvik Parikh | United States | $50,000 Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award at Intel ISEF 2018 | Age 18 |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- $50,000 Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award at Intel ISEF 2018 at 18 (Society for Science)
- Project title: 'A Novel Sol-Gel Derived SPEEK/Silicon Dioxide Composite Membrane for the Vanadium Redox Flow Battery'
- From Bothell, Washington
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No abstract, conductivity or cell performance data published in the source
- No school, mentor or laboratory named
- No information on publication, patents or his career after 2018
Questions people ask about Dhruvik Parikh
How old was Dhruvik Parikh when he won?
Eighteen, in May 2018. No date of birth appears in the source used here.
What is a vanadium redox flow battery?
A battery that stores energy in liquid electrolytes held in external tanks and pumped through a cell stack, suited to grid-scale storage.
What did his project make?
A sol-gel derived composite membrane combining SPEEK with silicon dioxide, for use in vanadium redox flow batteries.
What is SPEEK?
Sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone), a polymer studied as an alternative to standard fluorinated membranes in fuel cells and flow batteries.
How much did he win?
$50,000, one of two Intel Foundation Young Scientist Awards at Intel ISEF 2018.
Where is Dhruvik Parikh now?
No source used here reports on his studies or work after 2018.
Is Dhruvik Parikh on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article on him was confirmed for this entry.
What were the membrane's measured results?
None are published in the source used here, which gives the project title without an abstract.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Dhruvik’s story?
What kind of battery was Dhruvik Parikh's membrane for?
Which polymer is named in his project title?
How much was his award worth?
Sources
- Intel ISEF 2018 (top award winners) — Society for Science
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
Discover More Child Prodigies
50+ stories of contemporary young geniuses changing chess, music, science, and art.
Explore All Prodigies →Related Child Prodigy Profiles
Shania Muhammad🇺🇸 United States — She finished a bachelor's degree at 15. A year later she…
Arvind Mahankali🇺🇸 United States — He spelled 'knaidel', won the national bee…
Sawsan Ahmed🇺🇸 United States — She took her teddy bear into a college biology lab at 10.…
Kerry Close🇺🇸 United States — Four national bees ended in defeat. The fifth ended with a…
Sriram Hathwar🇺🇸 United States — He was the bee's youngest speller at eight. Six years…
Balu Natarajan🇺🇸 United States — An immigrant's son won America's English competition in…
.jpg)