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      in Environment

      Desirée Plata appointed co-director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium

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      Desirée Plata, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT, has been named co-director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC), effective Sept. 1. Plata will serve on the MCSC’s leadership team alongside Anantha P. Chandrakasan, dean of the MIT School of Engineering, the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and MCSC chair; Elsa Olivetti, the Jerry McAfee Professor in Engineering, a professor of materials science and engineering, and associate dean of engineering, and MCSC co-director; and Jeremy Gregory, MCSC executive director.Plata succeeds Jeffrey Grossman, the Morton and Claire Goulder and Family Professor in Environmental Systems, who has served as co-director since the MCSC’s launch in January 2021. Grossman, who played a central role in the ideation and launch of the MCSC, will continue his work with the MCSC as strategic advisor.“Professor Plata is a valued member of the MIT community. She brings a deep understanding of and commitment to climate and sustainability initiatives at MIT, as well as extensive experience working with industry, to her new role within the MCSC,” says Chandrakasan. The MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium is an academia-industry collaboration working to accelerate implementation of large-scale solutions across sectors of the global economy. It aims to lay the groundwork for one critical aspect of MIT’s continued and intensified commitment to climate: helping large companies usher in, adapt to, and prosper in a decarbonized world.“We are thrilled to bring Professor Plata’s knowledge, vision, and passion to our leadership team,” says Olivetti. “Her experience developing sustainable technologies that have the potential to improve the environment and reduce the impacts of climate change will help move our work forward in meaningful ways. We have valued Professor Plata’s contributions to the consortium and look forward to continuing our work with her.”Plata played a pivotal role in the creation and launch of the MCSC’s Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program and its yearlong course for MIT rising juniors and seniors — an effort that she and Olivetti were recently recognized for with the Class of 1960 Innovation in Education Fellowship. She has also been a member of the MCSC’s Faculty Steering Committee since the consortium’s launch, helping to shape and guide its vision and work.Plata is a dedicated researcher, educator, and mentor. A member of MIT’s faculty since 2018, Plata and her team at the Plata Lab are helping to guide industry to more environmentally sustainable practices and develop new ways to protect the health of the planet — using chemistry to understand the impact that industrial materials and processes have on the environment. By coupling devices that simulate industrial systems with computation, she helps industry develop more environmentally friendly practices.To celebrate her work in the lab, classroom, and community, Plata has received many awards and honors. In 2020, she won MIT’s prestigious Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award, recognizing her innovative approach to environmentally sustainable industrial practices, her inspirational teaching and mentoring, and her service to MIT and the community. She is a two-time National Academy of Sciences Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow, a two-time National Academy of Engineers Frontiers of Engineering Fellow, and a Caltech Young Investigator Sustainability Fellow. She has also won the ACS C. Ellen Gonter Environmental Chemistry Award, an NSF CAREER award, and the 2016 Odebrecht Award for Sustainable Development.Beyond her work in the academic space, Plata is co-founder of two climate- and energy-related startups: Nth Cycle and Moxair, illustrating her commitment to translating academic innovations for real-world implementation — a core value of the MCSC.Plata received her bachelor’s degree from Union College and her PhD from the MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (MIT-WHOI) joint program in oceanography/applied ocean science and engineering. After receiving her doctorate, Plata held positions at Mount Holyoke College, Duke University, and Yale University.  More

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      in Energy

      Jackson Jewett wants to design buildings that use less concrete

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      After three years leading biking tours through U.S. National Parks, Jackson Jewett decided it was time for a change.

      “It was a lot of fun, but I realized I missed buildings,” says Jewett. “I really wanted to be a part of that industry, learn more about it, and reconnect with my roots in the built environment.”

      Jewett grew up in California in what he describes as a “very creative household.”

      “I remember making very elaborate Halloween costumes with my parents, making fun dioramas for school projects, and building forts in the backyard, that kind of thing,” Jewett explains.

      Both of his parents have backgrounds in design; his mother studied art in college and his father is a practicing architect. From a young age, Jewett was interested in following in his father’s footsteps. But when he arrived at the University of California at Berkeley in the midst of the 2009 housing crash, it didn’t seem like the right time. Jewett graduated with a degree in cognitive science and a minor in history of architecture. And even as he led tours through Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and other parks, buildings were in the back of his mind.

      It wasn’t just the built environment that Jewett was missing. He also longed for the rigor and structure of an academic environment.

      Jewett arrived at MIT in 2017, initially only planning on completing the master’s program in civil and environmental engineering. It was then that he first met Josephine Carstensen, a newly hired lecturer in the department. Jewett was interested in Carstensen’s work on “topology optimization,” which uses algorithms to design structures that can achieve their performance requirements while using only a limited amount of material. He was particularly interested in applying this approach to concrete design, and he collaborated with Carstensen to help demonstrate its viability.

      After earning his master’s, Jewett spent a year and a half as a structural engineer in New York City. But when Carstensen was hired as a professor, she reached out to Jewett about joining her lab as a PhD student. He was ready for another change.

      Now in the third year of his PhD program, Jewett’s dissertation work builds upon his master’s thesis to further refine algorithms that can design building-scale concrete structures that use less material, which would help lower carbon emissions from the construction industry. It is estimated that the concrete industry alone is responsible for 8 percent of global carbon emissions, so any efforts to reduce that number could help in the fight against climate change.

      Implementing new ideas

      Topology optimization is a small field, with the bulk of the prior work being computational without any experimental verification. The work Jewett completed for his master’s thesis was just the start of a long learning process.

      “I do feel like I’m just getting to the part where I can start implementing my own ideas without as much support as I’ve needed in the past,” says Jewett. “In the last couple of months, I’ve been working on a reinforced concrete optimization algorithm that I hope will be the cornerstone of my thesis.”

      The process of fine-tuning a generative algorithm is slow going, particularly when tackling a multifaceted problem.

      “It can take days or usually weeks to take a step toward making it work as an entire integrated system,” says Jewett. “The days when that breakthrough happens and I can see the algorithm converging on a solution that makes sense — those are really exciting moments.”

      By harnessing computational power, Jewett is searching for materially efficient components that can be used to make up structures such as bridges or buildings. These are other constraints to consider as well, particularly ensuring that the cost of manufacturing isn’t too high. Having worked in the industry before starting the PhD program, Jewett has an eye toward doing work that can be feasibly implemented.

      Inspiring others

      When Jewett first visited MIT campus, he was drawn in by the collaborative environment of the institute and the students’ drive to learn. Now, he’s a part of that process as a teaching assistant and a supervisor in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.  

      Working as a teaching assistant isn’t a requirement for Jewett’s program, but it’s been one of his favorite parts of his time at MIT.

      “The MIT undergrads are so gifted and just constantly impress me,” says Jewett. “Being able to teach, especially in the context of what MIT values is a lot of fun. And I learn, too. My coding practices have gotten so much better since working with undergrads here.”

      Jewett’s experiences have inspired him to pursue a career in academia after the completion of his program, which he expects to complete in the spring of 2025. But he’s making sure to take care of himself along the way. He still finds time to plan cycling trips with his friends and has gotten into running ever since moving to Boston. So far, he’s completed two marathons.

      “It’s so inspiring to be in a place where so many good ideas are just bouncing back and forth all over campus,” says Jewett. “And on most days, I remember that and it inspires me. But it’s also the case that academics is hard, PhD programs are hard, and MIT — there’s pressure being here, and sometimes that pressure can feel like it’s working against you.”

      Jewett is grateful for the mental health resources that MIT provides students. While he says it can be imperfect, it’s been a crucial part of his journey.

      “My PhD thesis will be done in 2025, but the work won’t be done. The time horizon of when these things need to be implemented is relatively short if we want to make an impact before global temperatures have already risen too high. My PhD research will be developing a framework for how that could be done with concrete construction, but I’d like to keep thinking about other materials and construction methods even after this project is finished.” More

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      in Environment

      Harnessing hydrogen’s potential to address long-haul trucking emissions

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      The transportation of goods forms the basis of today’s globally distributed supply chains, and long-haul trucking is a central and critical link in this complex system. To meet climate goals around the world, it is necessary to develop decarbonized solutions to replace diesel powertrains, but given trucking’s indispensable and vast role, these solutions must be both economically viable and practical to implement. While hydrogen-based options, as an alternative to diesel, have the potential to become a promising decarbonization strategy, hydrogen has significant limitations when it comes to delivery and refueling.These roadblocks, combined with hydrogen’s compelling decarbonization potential, are what motivated a team of MIT researchers led by William H. Green, the Hoyt Hottel Professor in Chemical Engineering, to explore a cost-effective way to transport and store hydrogen using liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs). The team is developing a disruptive technology that allows LOHCs to not only deliver the hydrogen to the trucks, but also store the hydrogen onboard.Their findings were recently published in Energy and Fuels, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, in a paper titled “Perspective on Decarbonizing Long-Haul Trucks Using Onboard Dehydrogenation of Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers.” The MIT team is led by Green, and includes graduate students Sayandeep Biswas and Kariana Moreno Sader. Their research is supported by the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) through its Seed Awards program and MathWorks, and ties into the work within the MCSC’s Tough Transportation Modes focus area.An “onboard” approachCurrently, LOHCs, which work within existing retail fuel distribution infrastructure, are used to deliver hydrogen gas to refueling stations, where it is then compressed and delivered onto trucks equipped with hydrogen fuel cell or combustion engines.“This current approach incurs significant energy loss due to endothermic hydrogen release and compression at the retail station” says Green. “To address this, our work is exploring a more efficient application, with LOHC-powered trucks featuring onboard dehydrogenation.”To implement such a design, the team aims to modify the truck’s powertrain (the system inside a vehicle that produces the energy to propel it forward) to allow onboard hydrogen release from the LOHCs, using waste heat from the engine exhaust to power the “dehydrogenation” process. 

      Proposed process flow diagram for onboard dehydrogenation. Component sizes are not to scale and have been enlarged for illustrative purposes.

      Image courtesy of the Green Group.

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      The dehydrogenation process happens within a high-temperature reactor, which continually receives hydrogen-rich LOHCs from the fuel storage tank. Hydrogen released from the reactor is fed to the engine, after passing through a separator to remove any lingering LOHC. On its way to the engine, some of the hydrogen gets diverted to a burner to heat the reactor, which helps to augment the reactor heating provided by the engine exhaust gases.Acknowledging and addressing hydrogen’s drawbacksThe team’s paper underscores that current uses of hydrogen, including LOHC systems, to decarbonize the trucking sector have drawbacks. Regardless of technical improvements, these existing options remain prohibitively expensive due to the high cost of retail hydrogen delivery.“We present an alternative option that addresses a lot of the challenges and seems to be a viable way in which hydrogen can be used in this transportation context,” says Biswas, who was recently elected to the MIT Martin Family Society of Fellows for Sustainability for his work in this area. “Hydrogen, when used through LOHCs, has clear benefits for long-hauling, such as scalability and fast refueling time. There is also an enormous potential to improve delivery and refueling to further reduce cost, and our system is working to do that.”“Utilizing hydrogen is an option that is globally accessible, and could be extended to countries like the one where I am from,” says Moreno Sader, who is originally from Colombia. “Since it synergizes with existing infrastructure, large upfront investments are not necessary. The global applicability is huge.”Moreno Sader is a MathWorks Fellow, and, along with the rest of the team, has been using MATLAB tools to develop models and simulations for this work.Different sectors coming togetherDecarbonizing transportation modes, including long-haul trucking, requires expertise and perspectives from different industries — an approach that resonates with the MCSC’s mission.The team’s groundbreaking research into LOHC-powered trucking is among several projects supported by the MCSC within its Tough Transportation Modes focus area, led by postdoc Impact Fellow Danika MacDonell. The MCSC-supported projects were chosen to tackle a complementary set of societally important and industry-relevant challenges to decarbonizing heavy-duty transportation, which span a range of sectors and solution pathways. Other projects focus, for example, on logistics optimization for electrified trucking fleets, or air quality and climate impacts of ammonia-powered shipping.The MCSC works to support and amplify the impact of these projects by engaging the research teams with industry partners from a variety of sectors. In addition, the MCSC pursues a collective multisectoral approach to decarbonizing transportation by facilitating shared learning across the different projects through regular cross-team discussion.The research led by Green celebrates this cross-sector theme by integrating industry-leading computing tools provided by MathWorks with cutting-edge developments in chemical engineering, as well as industry-leading commercial LOHC reactor demonstrations, to build a compelling vision for cost-effective LOHC-powered trucking.The review and research conducted in the Energy and Fuels article lays the groundwork for further investigations into LOHC-powered truck design. The development of such a vehicle — with a power-dense, efficient, and robust onboard hydrogen release system — requires dedicated investigations and further optimization of core components geared specifically toward the trucking application. More

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      in Environment

      Technologies for water conservation and treatment move closer to commercialization

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      The Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) provides Solutions Grants to help MIT researchers launch startup companies or products to commercialize breakthrough technologies in water and food systems. The Solutions Grant Program began in 2015 and is supported by Community Jameel. In addition to one-year, renewable grants of up to $150,000, the program also matches grantees with industry mentors and facilitates introductions to potential investors. Since its inception, the J-WAFS Solutions Program has awarded over $3 million in funding to the MIT community. Numerous startups and products, including a portable desalination device and a company commercializing a novel food safety sensor, have spun out of this support.

      The 2023 J-WAFS Solutions Grantees are Professor C. Cem Tasan of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor Andrew Whittle of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Tasan’s project involves reducing water use in steel manufacturing and Whittle’s project tackles harmful algal blooms in water. Project work commences this September.

      “This year’s Solutions Grants are being award to professors Tasan and Whittle to help commercialize technologies they have been developing at MIT,” says J-WAFS executive director Renee J. Robins. “With J-WAFS’ support, we hope to see the teams move their technologies from the lab to the market, so they can have a beneficial impact on water use and water quality challenges,” Robins adds.

      Reducing water consumption by solid-state steelmaking

      Water is a major requirement for steel production. The steel industry ranks fourth in industrial freshwater consumption worldwide, since large amounts of water are needed mainly for cooling purposes in the process. Unfortunately, a strong correlation has also been shown to exist between freshwater use in steelmaking and water contamination. As the global demand for steel increases and freshwater availability decreases due to climate change, improved methods for more sustainable steel production are needed.

      A strategy to reduce the water footprint of steelmaking is to explore steel recycling processes that avoid liquid metal processing. With this motivation, Cem Tasan, the Thomas B. King Associate Professor of Metallurgy in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and postdoc Onur Guvenc PhD created a new process called Scrap Metal Consolidation (SMC). SMC is based on a well-established metal forming process known as roll bonding. Conventionally, roll bonding requires intensive prior surface treatment of the raw material, specific atmospheric conditions, and high deformation levels. Tasan and Guvenc’s research revealed that SMC can overcome these restrictions by enabling the solid-state bonding of scrap into a sheet metal form, even when the surface quality, atmospheric conditions, and deformation levels are suboptimal. Through lab-scale proof-of-principle investigations, they have already identified SMC process conditions and validated the mechanical formability of resulting steel sheets, focusing on mild steel, the most common sheet metal scrap.

      The J-WAFS Solutions Grant will help the team to build customer product prototypes, design the processing unit, and develop a scale-up strategy and business model. By simultaneously decreasing water usage, energy demand, contamination risk, and carbon dioxide burden, SMC has the potential to decrease the energy need for steel recycling by up to 86 percent, as well as reduce the linked carbon dioxide emissions and safeguard the freshwater resources that would otherwise be directed to industrial consumption. 

      Detecting harmful algal blooms in water before it’s too late

      Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are a growing problem in both freshwater and saltwater environments worldwide, causing an estimated $13 billion in annual damage to drinking water, water for recreational use, commercial fishing areas, and desalination activities. HABs pose a threat to both human health and aquaculture, thereby threatening the food supply. Toxins in HABs are produced by some cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, whose communities change in composition in response to eutrophication from agricultural runoff, sewer overflows, or other events. Mitigation of risks from HABs are most effective when there is advance warning of these changes in algal communities. 

      Most in situ measurements of algae are based on fluorescence spectroscopy that is conducted with LED-induced fluorescence (LEDIF) devices, or probes that induce fluorescence of specific algal pigments using LED light sources. While LEDIFs provide reasonable estimates of concentrations of individual pigments, they lack resolution to discriminate algal classes within complex mixtures found in natural water bodies. In prior research, Andrew Whittle, the Edmund K. Turner Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, worked with colleagues to design REMORA, a low-cost, field-deployable prototype spectrofluorometer for measuring induced fluorescence. This research was part of a collaboration between MIT and the AMS Institute. Whittle and the team successfully trained a machine learning model to discriminate and quantify cell concentrations for mixtures of different algal groups in water samples through an extensive laboratory calibration program using various algae cultures. The group demonstrated these capabilities in a series of field measurements at locations in Boston and Amsterdam. 

      Whittle will work with Fábio Duarte of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, the Senseable City Lab, and MIT’s Center for Real Estate to refine the design of REMORA. They will develop software for autonomous operation of the sensor that can be deployed remotely on mobile vessels or platforms to enable high-resolution spatiotemporal monitoring for harmful algae. Sensor commercialization will hopefully be able to exploit the unique capabilities of REMORA for long-term monitoring applications by water utilities, environmental regulatory agencies, and water-intensive industries.  More

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      in Energy

      Study suggests energy-efficient route to capturing and converting CO2

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      In the race to draw down greenhouse gas emissions around the world, scientists at MIT are looking to carbon-capture technologies to decarbonize the most stubborn industrial emitters.

      Steel, cement, and chemical manufacturing are especially difficult industries to decarbonize, as carbon and fossil fuels are inherent ingredients in their production. Technologies that can capture carbon emissions and convert them into forms that feed back into the production process could help to reduce the overall emissions from these “hard-to-abate” sectors.

      But thus far, experimental technologies that capture and convert carbon dioxide do so as two separate processes, that themselves require a huge amount of energy to run. The MIT team is looking to combine the two processes into one integrated and far more energy-efficient system that could potentially run on renewable energy to both capture and convert carbon dioxide from concentrated, industrial sources.

      In a study appearing today in ACS Catalysis, the researchers reveal the hidden functioning of how carbon dioxide can be both captured and converted through a single electrochemical process. The process involves using an electrode to attract carbon dioxide released from a sorbent, and to convert it into a reduced, reusable form.

      Others have reported similar demonstrations, but the mechanisms driving the electrochemical reaction have remained unclear. The MIT team carried out extensive experiments to determine that driver, and found that, in the end, it came down to the partial pressure of carbon dioxide. In other words, the more pure carbon dioxide that makes contact with the electrode, the more efficiently the electrode can capture and convert the molecule.

      Knowledge of this main driver, or “active species,” can help scientists tune and optimize similar electrochemical systems to efficiently capture and convert carbon dioxide in an integrated process.

      The study’s results imply that, while these electrochemical systems would probably not work for very dilute environments (for instance, to capture and convert carbon emissions directly from the air), they would be well-suited to the highly concentrated emissions generated by industrial processes, particularly those that have no obvious renewable alternative.

      “We can and should switch to renewables for electricity production. But deeply decarbonizing industries like cement or steel production is challenging and will take a longer time,” says study author Betar Gallant, the Class of 1922 Career Development Associate Professor at MIT. “Even if we get rid of all our power plants, we need some solutions to deal with the emissions from other industries in the shorter term, before we can fully decarbonize them. That’s where we see a sweet spot, where something like this system could fit.”

      The study’s MIT co-authors are lead author and postdoc Graham Leverick and graduate student Elizabeth Bernhardt, along with Aisyah Illyani Ismail, Jun Hui Law, Arif Arifutzzaman, and Mohamed Kheireddine Aroua of Sunway University in Malaysia.

      Breaking bonds

      Carbon-capture technologies are designed to capture emissions, or “flue gas,” from the smokestacks of power plants and manufacturing facilities. This is done primarily using large retrofits to funnel emissions into chambers filled with a “capture” solution — a mix of amines, or ammonia-based compounds, that chemically bind with carbon dioxide, producing a stable form that can be separated out from the rest of the flue gas.

      High temperatures are then applied, typically in the form of fossil-fuel-generated steam, to release the captured carbon dioxide from its amine bond. In its pure form, the gas can then be pumped into storage tanks or underground, mineralized, or further converted into chemicals or fuels.

      “Carbon capture is a mature technology, in that the chemistry has been known for about 100 years, but it requires really large installations, and is quite expensive and energy-intensive to run,” Gallant notes. “What we want are technologies that are more modular and flexible and can be adapted to more diverse sources of carbon dioxide. Electrochemical systems can help to address that.”

      Her group at MIT is developing an electrochemical system that both recovers the captured carbon dioxide and converts it into a reduced, usable product. Such an integrated system, rather than a decoupled one, she says, could be entirely powered with renewable electricity rather than fossil-fuel-derived steam.

      Their concept centers on an electrode that would fit into existing chambers of carbon-capture solutions. When a voltage is applied to the electrode, electrons flow onto the reactive form of carbon dioxide and convert it to a product using protons supplied from water. This makes the sorbent available to bind more carbon dioxide, rather than using steam to do the same.

      Gallant previously demonstrated this electrochemical process could work to capture and convert carbon dioxide into a solid carbonate form.

      “We showed that this electrochemical process was feasible in very early concepts,” she says. “Since then, there have been other studies focused on using this process to attempt to produce useful chemicals and fuels. But there’s been inconsistent explanations of how these reactions work, under the hood.”

      Solo CO2

      In the new study, the MIT team took a magnifying glass under the hood to tease out the specific reactions driving the electrochemical process. In the lab, they generated amine solutions that resemble the industrial capture solutions used to extract carbon dioxide from flue gas. They methodically altered various properties of each solution, such as the pH, concentration, and type of amine, then ran each solution past an electrode made from silver — a metal that is widely used in electrolysis studies and known to efficiently convert carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide. They then measured the concentration of carbon monoxide that was converted at the end of the reaction, and compared this number against that of every other solution they tested, to see which parameter had the most influence on how much carbon monoxide was produced.

      In the end, they found that what mattered most was not the type of amine used to initially capture carbon dioxide, as many have suspected. Instead, it was the concentration of solo, free-floating carbon dioxide molecules, which avoided bonding with amines but were nevertheless present in the solution. This “solo-CO2” determined the concentration of carbon monoxide that was ultimately produced.

      “We found that it’s easier to react this ‘solo’ CO2, as compared to CO2 that has been captured by the amine,” Leverick offers. “This tells future researchers that this process could be feasible for industrial streams, where high concentrations of carbon dioxide could efficiently be captured and converted into useful chemicals and fuels.”

      “This is not a removal technology, and it’s important to state that,” Gallant stresses. “The value that it does bring is that it allows us to recycle carbon dioxide some number of times while sustaining existing industrial processes, for fewer associated emissions. Ultimately, my dream is that electrochemical systems can be used to facilitate mineralization, and permanent storage of CO2 — a true removal technology. That’s a longer-term vision. And a lot of the science we’re starting to understand is a first step toward designing those processes.”

      This research is supported by Sunway University in Malaysia. More

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      in Energy

      Q&A: Three Tata Fellows on the program’s impact on themselves and the world

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      The Tata Fellowship at MIT gives graduate students the opportunity to pursue interdisciplinary research and work with real-world applications in developing countries. Part of the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design, this fellowship contributes to the center’s goal of designing appropriate, practical solutions for resource-constrained communities. Three Tata Fellows — Serena Patel, Rameen Hayat Malik, and Ethan Harrison — discuss the impact of this program on their research, perspectives, and time at MIT.

      Serena Patel

      Serena Patel graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in energy engineering and a minor in energy and resources. She is currently pursuing her SM in technology and policy at MIT and is a Tata Fellow focusing on decarbonization in India using techno-economic modeling. Her interest in the intersection of technology, policy, economics, and social justice led her to attend COP27, where she experienced decision-maker and activist interactions firsthand.

      Q: How did you become interested in the Tata Fellowship, and how has it influenced your time at MIT?

      A: The Tata Center appealed to my interest in searching for creative, sustainable energy technologies that center collaboration with local-leading organizations. It has also shaped my understanding of the role of technology in sustainable development planning. Our current energy system disproportionately impacts marginalized communities, and new energy systems have the potential to perpetuate and/or create inequities. I am broadly interested in how we can put people at the core of our technological solutions and support equitable energy transitions. I specifically work on techno-economic modeling to analyze the potential for an early retirement of India’s large coal fleet and conversion to long-duration thermal energy storage. This could mitigate job losses from rapid transitions, support India’s energy system decarbonization plan, and provide a cost-effective way to retire stranded assets.

      Q: Why is interdisciplinary study important to real-world solutions for global communities, and how has working at the intersection of technology and policy influenced your research?

      A: Technology and policy work together in mediating and regulating the world around us. Technological solutions can be disruptive in all the good ways, but they can also do a lot of harm and perpetuate existing inequities. Interdisciplinary studies are important to mitigate these interrelated issues so innovative ideas in the ivory towers of Western academia do not negatively impact marginalized communities. For real-world solutions to positively impact individuals, marginalized communities need to be centered within the research design process. I think the research community’s perspective on real-world, global solutions is shifting to achieve these goals, but much work remains for resources to reach the right communities.

      The energy space is especially fascinating because it impacts everyone’s quality of life in overt or nuanced ways. I’ve had the privilege of taking classes that sit at the intersection of energy technology and policy, involving land-use law, geographic representation, energy regulation, and technology policy. In general, working at the intersection of technology and policy has shaped my perspective on how regulation influences widespread technology adoption and the overall research directions and assumptions in our energy models.

      Q: How has your experience at COP27 influenced your approach to your research?

      A: Attending COP27 at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, last November influenced my understanding of the role of science, research, and activism in climate negotiations and action. Science and research are often promoted as necessary for sharing knowledge at the higher levels, but they were also used as a delay tactic by negotiators. I heard how institutional bodies meant to support fair science and research often did not reach intended stakeholders. Lofty goals or financial commitments to ensure global climate stability and resilience still lacked implementation and coordination with deep technology transfer and support. On the face of it, these agreements have impact and influence, but I heard many frustrations over the lack of tangible, local support. This has driven my research to be as context-specific as possible, to provide actionable insights and leverage different disciplines.

      I also observed the role of activism in the negotiations. Decision-makers are accountable to their country, and activists are spreading awareness and bringing transparency to the COP process. As a U.S. citizen, I suddenly became more aware of how political engagement and awareness in the country could push the boundaries of international climate agreements if the government were more aligned on climate action.

      Rameen Hayat Malik

      Rameen Hayat Malik graduated from the University of Sydney with a bachelor’s degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering and a Bachelor of Laws. She is currently pursuing her SM in technology and policy and is a Tata Fellow researching the impacts of electric vehicle (EV) battery production in Indonesia. Originally from Australia, she first became interested in the geopolitical landscape of resources trade and its implications for the clean energy transition while working in her native country’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

      Q: How did you become interested in the Tata Fellowship, and how has it influenced your time at MIT?

      A: I came across the Tata Fellowship while looking for research opportunities that aligned with my interest in understanding how a just energy transition will occur in a global context, with a particular focus on emerging economies. My research explores the techno-economic, social, and environmental impacts of nickel mining in Indonesia as it seeks to establish itself as a major producer of EV batteries. The fellowship’s focus on community-driven research has given me the freedom to guide the scope of my research. It has allowed me to integrate a community voice into my work that seeks to understand the impact of this mining on forest-dependent communities, Indigenous communities, and workforce development.

      Q: Battery technology and production are highly discussed in the energy sector. How does your research on Indonesia’s battery production contribute to the current discussion around batteries, and what drew you to this topic?

      A: Indonesia is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal, while also having one of the largest nickel reserves in the world — a key mineral for EV battery production. This presents an exciting opportunity for Indonesia to be a leader in the energy transition, as it both seeks to phase out coal production and establish itself as a key supplier of critical minerals. It is also an opportunity to actually apply principles of a just transition to the region, which seeks to repurpose and re-skill existing coal workforces, to bring Indigenous communities into the conversation around the future of their lands, and to explore whether it is actually possible to sustainably and ethically produce nickel for EV battery production.

      I’ve always seen battery technologies and EVs as products that, at least today, are accessible to a small, privileged customer base that can afford such technologies. I’m interested in understanding how we can make such products more widely affordable and provide our lowest-income communities with the opportunities to actively participate in the transition — especially since access to transportation is a key driver of social mobility. With nickel prices impacting EV prices in such a dramatic way, unlocking more nickel supply chains presents an opportunity to make EV batteries more accessible and affordable.

      Q: What advice would you give to new students who want to be a part of real-world solutions to the climate crisis?

      A: Bring your whole self with you when engaging these issues. Quite often we get caught up with the technology or modeling aspect of addressing the climate crisis and forget to bring people and their experiences into our work. Think about your positionality: Who is your community, what are the avenues you have to bring that community along, and what privileges do you hold to empower and amplify voices that need to be heard? Find a piece of this complex puzzle that excites you, and find opportunities to talk and listen to people who are directly impacted by the solutions you are looking to explore. It can get quite overwhelming working in this space, which carries a sense of urgency, politicization, and polarization with it. Stay optimistic, keep advocating, and remember to take care of yourself while doing this important work.

      Ethan Harrison

      After earning his degree in economics and applied science from the College of William and Mary, Ethan Harrison worked at the United Nations Development Program in its Crisis Bureau as a research officer focused on conflict prevention and predictive analysis. He is currently pursuing his SM in technology and policy at MIT. In his Tata Fellowship, he focuses on the impacts of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on global vulnerability and the global energy market.

      Q: How did you become interested in the Tata Fellowship, and how has it influenced your time at MIT?

      A: Coming to MIT, one of my chief interests was figuring out how we can leverage gains from technology to improve outcomes and build pro-poor solutions in developing and crisis contexts. The Tata Fellowship aligned with many of the conclusions I drew while working in crisis contexts and some of the outstanding questions that I was hoping to answer during my time at MIT, specifically: How can we leverage technology to build sustainable, participatory, and ethically grounded interventions in these contexts?

      My research currently examines the secondary impacts of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on low- and middle-income countries — especially fragile states — with a focus on shocks in the global energy market. This includes the development of a novel framework that systematically identifies factors of vulnerability — such as in energy, food systems, and trade dependence — and quantitatively ranks countries by their level of vulnerability. By identifying the specific mechanisms by which these countries are vulnerable, we can develop a map of global vulnerability and identify key policy solutions that can insulate countries from current and future shocks.

      Q: I understand that your research deals with the relationship between oil and gas price fluctuation and political stability. What has been the most surprising aspect of this relationship, and what are its implications for global decarbonization?

      A: One surprising aspect is the degree to which citizen grievances regarding price fluctuations can quickly expand to broader democratic demands and destabilization. In Sri Lanka last year and in Egypt during the Arab spring, initial protests around fuel prices and power outages eventually led to broader demands and the loss of power by heads of state. Another surprising aspect is the popularity of fuel subsidies despite the fact that they are economically regressive: They often comprise a large proportion of GDP in poor countries, disproportionately benefit higher-income populations, and leave countries vulnerable to fiscal stress during price spikes.

      Regarding implications for global decarbonization, one project we are pursuing examines the implications of directing financing from fuel subsidies toward investments in renewable energy. Countries that rely on fossil fuels for electricity have been hit especially hard 
by price spikes from the Ukraine-Russia conflict, especially since many were carrying costly fuel subsidies to keep the price of fuel and energy artificially low. Much of the international community is advocating for low-income countries to invest in renewables and reduce their fossil fuel burden, but it’s important to explore how global decarbonization can align with efforts to end energy poverty and other Sustainable Development Goals.

      Q: How does your research impact the Tata Center’s goal of transforming policy research into real-world solutions, and why is this important?

      A: The crisis in Ukraine has shifted the international community’s focus away from other countries in crisis, such as Yemen and Lebanon. By developing a global map of vulnerability, we’re building a large evidence base on which countries have been most impacted by this crisis. Most importantly, by identifying individual channels of vulnerability for each country, we can also identify the most effective policy solutions to insulate vulnerable populations from shocks. Whether that’s advocating for short-term social protection programs or identifying more medium-term policy solutions — like fuel banks or investment in renewables — we hope providing a detailed map of sources of vulnerability can help inform the global response to shocks imposed by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and post-Covid recovery. More

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      in Energy

      Alumnus’ thermal battery helps industry eliminate fossil fuels

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      The explosion of renewable energy projects around the globe is leading to a saturation problem. As more renewable power contributes to the grid, the value of electricity is plummeting during the times of day when wind and solar hit peak productivity. The problem is limiting renewable energy investments in some of the sunniest and windiest places in the world.

      Now Antora Energy, co-founded by David Bierman SM ’14, PhD ’17, is addressing the intermittent nature of wind and solar with a low-cost, highly efficient thermal battery that stores electricity as heat to allow manufacturers and other energy-hungry businesses to eliminate their use of fossil fuels.

      “We take electricity when it’s cheapest, meaning when wind gusts are strongest and the sun is shining brightest,” Bierman explains. “We run that electricity through a resistive heater to drive up the temperature of a very inexpensive material — we use carbon blocks, which are extremely stable, produced at incredible scales, and are some of the cheapest materials on Earth. When you need to pull energy from the battery, you open a large shutter to extract thermal radiation, which is used to generate process heat or power using our thermophotovoltaic, or TPV, technology. The end result is a zero-carbon, flexible, combined heat and power system for industry.”

      Antora’s battery could dramatically expand the application of renewable energy by enabling its use in industry, a sector of the U.S. economy that accounted for nearly a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions in 2021.

      Antora says it is able to deliver on the long-sought promise of heat-to-power TPV technology because it has achieved new levels of efficiency and scalability with its cells. Earlier this year, Antora opened a new manufacturing facility that will be capable of producing 2 megawatts of its TPV cells each year — which the company says makes it the largest TPV production facility in the world.

      Antora’s thermal battery manufacturing facilities and demonstration unit are located in sun-soaked California, where renewables make up close to a third of all electricity. But Antora’s team says its technology holds promise in other regions as increasingly large renewable projects connect to grids across the globe.

      “We see places today [with high renewables] as a sign of where things are going,” Bierman says. “If you look at the tailwinds we have in the renewable industry, there’s a sense of inevitability about solar and wind, which will need to be deployed at incredible scales to avoid a climate catastrophe. We’ll see terawatts and terawatts of new additions of these renewables, so what you see today in California or Texas or Kansas, with significant periods of renewable overproduction, is just the tip of the iceberg.”

      Bierman has been working on thermal energy storage and thermophotovoltaics since his time at MIT, and Antora’s ties to MIT are especially strong because its progress is the result of two MIT startups becoming one.

      Alumni join forces

      Bierman did his masters and doctoral work in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he worked on solid-state solar thermal energy conversion systems. In 2016, while taking course 15.366 (Climate and Energy Ventures), he met Jordan Kearns SM ’17, then a graduate student in the Technology and Policy Program and the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. The two were studying renewable energy when they began to think about the intermittent nature of wind and solar as an opportunity rather than a problem.

      “There are already places in the U.S. where we have more wind and solar at times than we know what to do with,” Kearns says. “That is an opportunity for not only emissions reductions but also for reducing energy costs. What’s the application? I don’t think the overproduction of energy was being talked about as much as the intermittency problem.”

      Kearns did research through the MIT Energy Initiative and the researchers received support from MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service and the MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund to further explore ways to capitalize on fluctuating power prices.

      Kearns officially founded a company called Medley Thermal in 2017 to help companies that use natural gas switch to energy produced by renewables when the price was right. To accomplish that, he combined an off-the-shelf electric boiler with novel control software so the companies could switch energy sources seamlessly from fossil fuel to electricity at especially windy or sunny times. Medley went on to become a finalist for the MIT Clean Energy Prize, and Kearns wanted Bierman to join him as a co-founder, but Bierman had received a fellowship to commercialize a thermal energy storage solution and decided to pursue that after graduation.

      The split ended up working out for both alumni. In the ensuing years, Kearns led Medley Thermal through a number of projects in which gradually larger companies switched from relying on natural gas or propane sources to renewable electricity from the grid. The work culminated in an installment at the Jay Peak resort in Vermont that Kearns says is one of the largest projects in the U.S. using renewable energy to produce heat. The project is expected to reduce about 2,500 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

      Bierman, meanwhile, further developed a thermal energy storage solution for industrial decarbonization, which works by using renewable electricity to heat blocks of carbon, which are stored in insulation to retain energy for long periods of time. The heat from those blocks can then be used to deliver electricity or heat to customers, at temperatures that can exceed 1,500 C. When Antora raised a $50 million Series A funding round last year, Bierman asked Kearns if he could buy out Medley’s team, and the researchers finally became co-workers.

      “Antora and Medley Thermal have a similar value prop: There’s low-cost electricity, and we want to connect that to the industrial sector,” Kearns explains. “But whereas Medley used renewables on an as-available basis, and then when the winds stop we went back to burning fossil fuel with a boiler, Antora has a thermal battery that takes in the electricity, converts it to heat, but also stores it as heat so even when the wind stops blowing we have a reservoir of heat that we can continue to pull from to make steam or power or whatever the facility needs. So, we can now further reduce energy costs by offsetting more fuel and offer a 100 percent clean energy solution.”

      United we scale

      Today, Kearns runs the project development arm of Antora.

      “There are other, much larger projects in the pipeline,” Kearns says. “The Jay Peak project is about 3 megawatts of power, but some of the ones we’re working on now are 30, 60 megawatt projects. Those are more industrial focused, and they’re located in places where we have a strong industrial base and an abundance of renewables, everywhere from Texas to Kansas to the Dakotas — that heart of the country that our team lovingly calls the Wind Belt.”

      Antora’s future projects will be with companies in the chemicals, mining, food and beverage, and oil and gas industries. Some of those projects are expected to come online as early as 2025.          

      The company’s scaling strategy is centered on the inexpensive production process for its batteries.

      “We constantly ask ourselves, ‘What is the best product we can make here?’” Bierman says. “We landed on a compact, containerized, modular system that gets shipped to sites and is easily integrated into industrial processes. It means we don’t have huge construction projects, timelines, and budget overruns. Instead, it’s all about scaling up the factory that builds these thermal batteries and just churning them out.”

      It was a winding journey for Kearns and Bierman, but they now believe they’re positioned to help huge companies become carbon-free while promoting the growth of the solar and wind industries.

      “The more I dig into this, the more shocked I am at how important a piece of the decarbonization puzzle this is today,” Bierman says. “The need has become super real since we first started talking about this in 2016. The economic opportunity has grown, but more importantly the awareness from industries that they need to decarbonize is totally different. Antora can help with that, so we’re scaling up as rapidly as possible to meet the demand we see in the market.” More

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      in Environment

      3 Questions: Boosting concrete’s ability to serve as a natural “carbon sink”

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      Damian Stefaniuk is a postdoc at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub). He works with MIT professors Franz-Josef Ulm and Admir Masic of the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) to investigate multifunctional concrete. Here, he provides an overview of carbonation in cement-based products, a brief explanation of why understanding carbonation in the life cycle of cement products is key for assessing their environmental impact, and an update on current research to bolster the process.

      Q: What is carbonation and why is it important for thinking about concrete from a life-cycle perspective?

      A: Carbonation is the reaction between carbon dioxide (CO2) and certain compounds in cement-based products, occurring during their use phase and end of life. It forms calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and has important implications for neutralizing the GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions and achieving carbon neutrality in the life cycle of concrete.

      Firstly, carbonation causes cement-based products to act as natural carbon sinks, sequestering CO2 from the air and storing it permanently. This helps mitigate the carbon emissions associated with the production of cement, reducing their overall carbon footprint.

      Secondly, carbonation affects concrete properties. Early-stage carbonation may increase the compressive strength of cement-based products, enhancing their durability and structural performance. However, late-stage carbonation can impact corrosion resistance in steel-reinforced concrete due to reduced alkalinity.

      Considering carbonation in the life cycle of cement-based products is crucial for accurately assessing their environmental impact. Understanding and leveraging carbonation can help industry reduce carbon emissions and maximize carbon sequestration potential. Paying close attention to it in the design process aids in creating durable and corrosion-resistant structures, contributing to longevity and overall sustainability.

      Q: What are some ongoing global efforts to force carbonation?

      A: Some ongoing efforts to force carbonation in concrete involve artificially increasing the amount of CO2 gas present during the early-stage hydration of concrete. This process, known as forced carbonation, aims to accelerate the carbonation reaction and its associated benefits.

      Forced carbonation is typically applied to precast concrete elements that are produced in artificially CO2-rich environments. By exposing fresh concrete to higher concentrations of CO2 during curing, the carbonation process can be expedited, resulting in potential improvements in strength, reduced water absorption, improved resistance to chloride permeability, and improved performance during freeze-thaw. At the same time, it can be difficult to quantify how much CO2 is absorbed and released because of the process.

      These efforts to induce early-stage carbonation through forced carbonation represent the industry’s focus on optimizing concrete performance and environmental impacts. By exploring methods to enhance the carbonation process, researchers and practitioners seek to more efficiently harness its benefits, such as increasing strength and sequestering CO2.

      It is important to note that forced carbonation requires careful implementation and monitoring to ensure desired outcomes. The specific procedures and conditions vary based on the application and intended goals, highlighting the need for expertise and controlled environments.

      Overall, ongoing efforts in forced carbonation contribute to the continuous development of concrete technology, aiming to improve its properties and reduce its carbon footprint throughout the life cycle of the material.

      Q: What is chemically-induced pre-cure carbonation, and what implications does it have?

      A: Chemically-induced pre-cure carbonation (CIPCC) is a method developed by the MIT CSHub to mineralize and permanently store CO2 in cement. Unlike traditional forced carbonation methods, CIPCC introduces CO2 into the concrete mix as a solid powder, specifically sodium bicarbonate. This approach addresses some of the limitations of current carbon capture and utilization technologies.

      The implications of CIPCC are significant. Firstly, it offers convenience for cast-in-place applications, making it easier to incorporate CO2 use in concrete projects. Unlike some other approaches, CIPCC allows for precise control over the quantity of CO2 sequestered in the concrete. This ensures accurate carbonation and facilitates better management of the storage process. CIPCC also builds on previous research regarding amorphous hydration phases, providing an additional mechanism for CO2 sequestration in cement-based products. These phases carbonate through CIPCC, contributing to the overall carbon sequestration capacity of the material.

      Furthermore, early-stage pre-cure carbonation shows promise as a pathway for concrete to permanently sequester a controlled and precise quantity of CO2. Our recent paper in PNAS Nexus suggests that it could theoretically offset at least 40 percent of the calcination emissions associated with cement production, when anticipating advances in the lower-emissions production of sodium bicarbonate. We also found that up to 15 percent of cement (by weight) could be substituted with sodium bicarbonate without compromising the mechanical performance of a given mix. Further research is needed to evaluate long-term effects of this process to explore the potential life-cycle savings and impacts of carbonation.

      CIPCC offers not only environmental benefits by reducing carbon emissions, but also practical advantages. The early-stage strength increase observed in real-world applications could expedite construction timelines by allowing concrete to reach its full strength faster.

      Overall, CIPCC demonstrates the potential for more efficient and controlled CO2 sequestration in concrete. It represents an important development in concrete sustainability, emphasizing the need for further research and considering the material’s life-cycle impacts.

      This research was carried out by MIT CSHub, which is sponsored by the Concrete Advancement Foundation and the Portland Cement Association. More