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      in Security

      Professor Emeritus Richard Wurtman, influential figure in translational research, dies at 86

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      Richard Wurtman, the Cecil H. Green Distinguished Professor Emeritus and a member of the MIT faculty for 44 years, died on Dec. 13. He was 86.

      Wurtman received an MD from Harvard Medical School in 1960 and trained at Massachusetts General Hospital before joining the laboratory of Nobel laureate Julius Axelrod at the National Institutes of Health in 1962. In 1967, MIT invited him to start a neurochemistry and neuropharmacology program in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science. In the early 1980s he joined the newly formed Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Wurtman was also deeply involved in the National Institutes of Health-established Clinical Research Center at MIT, which he also directed for 25 years.

      His initial placement in Nutrition and Food Science was fortuitous, recalled Wurtman in a 2011 profile, because it “sensitized me to the fact that nutrients are chemicals the way drugs are chemicals. A compound like folic acid is a vitamin in foods, but when given alone in higher doses it becomes a drug that safeguards the developing nervous system.”

      Wurtman’s search for new biological properties and therapeutic uses of known molecules — hormones, nutrients, or existing pharmaceuticals — was highly fruitful. His research on the pineal gland, which started when he was a medical student, led to the discovery that melatonin, the hormone made by the gland, regulates sleep. 

      “Dick Wurtman was a pioneer in studying the role of neurotransmitters in the brain, and neuroendocrine regulation of normal and abnormal brain function,” says Newton Professor of Neuroscience Mriganka Sur, who served as head of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences from 1997 to 2012. “His work on the impact of nutrition on neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine and on neuronal membrane synthesis laid the groundwork for later translational work on brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.”

      Wurtman’s lab discovered that consuming carbohydrates increases tryptophan levels in the brain and consequently the production of the neurotransmitter serotonin. This led to a long collaboration with his wife Judith Wurtman, an MIT research affiliate, in which they found that carbohydrates were often consumed by individuals as a form of self-medication when they experienced changes in mood, such as late in the afternoon or when suffering from premenstrual syndrome (PMS). The Wurtmans’ research led to the development of Sarafem, the first drug for severe PMS, and a drink, PMS Escape, used for milder forms of this syndrome.

      To commercialize some of his findings, Wurtman founded Interneuron Pharmaceuticals in 1988; the company was renamed Indevus in 2002 and acquired by Endo Pharmaceuticals in 2009.

      Wurtman’s research advanced the idea that substrate availability, and not simply enzyme activity, can control metabolic processes in the brain. He discovered that the dietary availability of neurotransmitter precursors (e.g., acetylcholine, dopamine, and GABA) can increase their levels in the brain and modulate their metabolism. Moreover, he applied this concept to synaptic structural components such as brain phosphatides and found that dietary intake of three rate-limiting precursors — uridine, choline, and the omega-3 fatty acid DHA — led to increased brain phosphatide levels, increased dendritic spine density, and improved memory performance. These findings led to the development of Souvenaid, a specifically formulated multi-nutrient drink based on the three essential phosphatide precursors of Wurtman’s later research. It has been the subject of numerous clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease, and, most recently, for age-related cognitive decline.

      “Dick Wurtman was a pioneer on studying how nutrients influence brain function,” says Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience and director of The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. “His nutrient clinical trial work and establishment of the MIT Clinical Research Center have been tremendously helpful for my own work on understanding how high doses of supplement choline could potentially help reduce certain Alzheimer’s risk, and our team’s development of clinical studies at MIT to test Alzheimer’s therapies.”

      “Dick’s legacy resides within the careers of hundreds of trainees and collaborators he launched or enhanced, the 1,000-plus published research articles, his numerous patent awards, and people who benefited from his therapeutic approaches,” says former postdoc Bertha Madras, now a professor of psychobiology at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “Yet, these quantitative metrics, legacies of research and mentoring, do not illustrate the charitable qualities of this remarkable man. I witnessed his deep intellect, boundless energy, enthusiasm, optimism, and generosity toward trainees, qualities that helped to sustain me during crests and troughs encountered in the adventures of a scientific career. Dr. Richard Wurtman was a creative, brilliant scientist, a mentor, a devoted husband to his beloved wife.”

      “Dick was an inspiration, a motivation, and a guide to all his students and colleagues in shaping thoughts to be precise and purposeful,” says Tony Nader PhD ’89, who did his doctoral research with Wurtman. “His rigorous scientific approach and the application of his findings have contributed to make life better. His legacy is huge.”

      Richard and Judith Wurtman have also made a lasting philanthropic impact at MIT. They endowed a professorship in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences in honor of the late Institute Professor and provost Walter Rosenblith; the chair was held first by Ann Graybiel, who is now an Institute Professor; Nancy Kanwisher is the current Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience. The Wurtmans have also been longtime supporters of MIT Hillel.

      Elazer R. Edelman, the Edward J. Poitras Professor in Medical Engineering and Science at MIT, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and director of the MIT Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, recalls that Wurtman was also supportive of the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology: “He changed our school and our world — he and Judith coupled immense charity with exceptional intellect and they made us all better for it.”

      Richard Wurtman is survived by his wife, Judith; daughter Rachael; son David and daughter-in-law Jean Chang; and grandchildren Dvora Toren, Yael Toren and Jacob Vider.  More

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      in Environment

      MIT community in 2022: A year in review

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      In 2022, MIT returned to a bit of normalcy after the challenge of Covid-19 began to subside. The Institute prepared to bid farewell to its president and later announced his successor; announced five flagship projects in a new competition aimed at tackling climate’s greatest challenges; made new commitments toward ensuring support for diverse voices; and celebrated the reopening of a reimagined MIT Museum — as well as a Hollywood blockbuster featuring scenes from campus. Here are some of the top stories in the MIT community this year.

      Presidential transition

      In February, MIT President L. Rafael Reif announced that he planned to step down at the end of 2022. In more than 10 years as president, Reif guided MIT through a period of dynamic growth, greatly enhancing its global stature and magnetism. At the conclusion of his term at the end of this month, Reif will take a sabbatical, then return to the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In September, Reif expressed his gratitude to the MIT community at an Institute-wide dance celebration, and he was honored with a special MIT Dome lighting earlier this month.

      After an extensive presidential search, Sally Kornbluth, a cell biologist and the current provost of Duke University, was announced in October as MIT’s 18th president. Following an introduction to MIT that included a press conference, welcoming event, and community celebration, Kornbluth will assume the MIT presidency on Jan. 1, 2023.

      In other administrative transitions: Cynthia Barnhart was appointed provost after Martin Schmidt stepped down to become president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Sanjay Sarma stepped down as vice president for open learning after nine years in the role; professors Brent Ryan and Anne White were named associate provosts, while White was also named associate vice president for research administration; and Agustín Rayo was named dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.

      Climate Grand Challenges

      MIT announced five flagship projects in its first-ever Climate Grand Challenges competition. These multiyear projects focus on unraveling some of the toughest unsolved climate problems and bringing high-impact, science-based solutions to the world on an accelerated basis. Representing the most promising concepts to emerge from the two-year competition that yielded 27 finalist projects, the five flagship projects will receive additional funding and resources from MIT and others to develop their ideas and swiftly transform them into practical solutions at scale.

      CHIPS and Science Act

      President Reif and Vice President for Research Maria Zuber were among several MIT representatives to witness President Biden’s signing of the $52 billion “CHIPS and Science” bill into law in August. Reif helped shape aspects of the bill and was a vocal advocate for it among university and government officials, while Zuber served on two government science advisory boards during the bill’s gestation and consideration. Earlier in the year, MIT.nano hosted U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, while MIT researchers released a key report on U.S. microelectronics research and manufacturing.

      MIT Morningside Academy for Design

      Supported by a $100 million founding gift, the MIT Morningside Academy for Design launched as a major interdisciplinary center that aims to build on the Institute’s leadership in design-focused education. Housed in the School of Architecture and Planning, the academy provides a hub that will encourage design work at MIT to grow and cross disciplines among engineering, science, management, computing, architecture, urban planning, and the arts.

      Reports of the Institute

      A number of key Institute reports and announcements were released in 2022. They include: an announcement of the future of gift acceptance for MIT: an announcement of priority MIT investments; a new MIT Values Statement; a renewed commitment to Indigenous scholarship and community; the Strategic Action Plan for Belonging, Achievement, and Composition; a report on MIT’s engagement with China; a report of the Working Group on Reimagining Public Safety at MIT; a report of the Indigenous Working Group; and a report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Arts, Culture, and DEI.

      Nobel Prizes

      MIT affiliates were well-represented among new and recent Nobel laureates who took part in the first in-person Nobel Prize ceremony since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. MIT-affiliated winners for 2022 included Ben Bernanke PhD ’79, K. Barry Sharpless, and Carolyn Bertozzi. Winners in attendance from 2020 and 2021 included Professor Joshua Angrist, David Julius ’77, and Andrea Ghez ’87.

      New MIT Museum

      A reimagined MIT Museum opened this fall in a new 56,000-square-foot space in the heart of Cambridge’s Kendall Square. The museum invites visitors to explore the Institute’s innovations in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math — and to take part in that work with hands-on learning labs and maker spaces, interactive exhibits, and venues to discuss the impact of science and technology on society.

      “Wakanda Forever”

      In November, the Institute Office of Communications and the Division of Student Life hosted a special screening of Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The MIT campus had been used as a filming location in summer 2021, as one of the film’s characters, Riri Williams (also known as Ironheart), is portrayed as a student at the Institute.

      In-person Commencement returns

      After two years of online celebrations due to Covid-19, MIT Commencement returned to Killian Court at the end of May. World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP ’78, PhD ’81 delivered the Commencement address, while poet Kealoha Wong ’99 spoke at a special ceremony for the classes of 2020 and 2021.

      Students win distinguished fellowships

      As in previous years, MIT students continued to shine. This year, exceptional undergraduates were awarded Fulbright, Marshall, Mitchell, Rhodes, and Schwarzman scholarships.

      Remembering those we’ve lost

      Among MIT community members who died this year were Robert Balluffi, Louis Braida, Ashton Carter, Tom Eagar, Dick Eckaus, Octavian-Eugen Ganea, Peter Griffith, Patrick Hale, Frank Sidney Jones, Nonabah Lane, Leo Marx, Bruce Montgomery, Joel Moses, Brian Sousa Jr., Mohamed Magdi Taha, John Tirman, Richard Wurtman, and Markus Zahn.

      In case you missed it:

      Additional top community stories of 2022 included MIT students dominating the 82nd Putnam Mathematical Competition, an update on MIT’s reinstating the SAT/ACT requirement for admissions, a new mathematics program for Ukrainian students and refugees, a roundup of new books from MIT authors, the renaming of the MIT.nano building, an announcement of winners of this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, the new MIT Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel, and MIT students winning the 45th International Collegiate Programming Contest for the first time in 44 years. More

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      in Energy

      Manufacturing a cleaner future

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      Manufacturing had a big summer. The CHIPS and Science Act, signed into law in August, represents a massive investment in U.S. domestic manufacturing. The act aims to drastically expand the U.S. semiconductor industry, strengthen supply chains, and invest in R&D for new technological breakthroughs. According to John Hart, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity at MIT, the CHIPS Act is just the latest example of significantly increased interest in manufacturing in recent years.

      “You have multiple forces working together: reflections from the pandemic’s impact on supply chains, the geopolitical situation around the world, and the urgency and importance of sustainability,” says Hart. “This has now aligned incentives among government, industry, and the investment community to accelerate innovation in manufacturing and industrial technology.”

      Hand-in-hand with this increased focus on manufacturing is a need to prioritize sustainability.

      Roughly one-quarter of greenhouse gas emissions came from industry and manufacturing in 2020. Factories and plants can also deplete local water reserves and generate vast amounts of waste, some of which can be toxic.

      To address these issues and drive the transition to a low-carbon economy, new products and industrial processes must be developed alongside sustainable manufacturing technologies. Hart sees mechanical engineers as playing a crucial role in this transition.

      “Mechanical engineers can uniquely solve critical problems that require next-generation hardware technologies, and know how to bring their solutions to scale,” says Hart.

      Several fast-growing companies founded by faculty and alumni from MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering offer solutions for manufacturing’s environmental problem, paving the path for a more sustainable future.

      Gradiant: Cleantech water solutions

      Manufacturing requires water, and lots of it. A medium-sized semiconductor fabrication plant uses upward of 10 million gallons of water a day. In a world increasingly plagued by droughts, this dependence on water poses a major challenge.

      Gradiant offers a solution to this water problem. Co-founded by Anurag Bajpayee SM ’08, PhD ’12 and Prakash Govindan PhD ’12, the company is a pioneer in sustainable — or “cleantech” — water projects.

      As doctoral students in the Rohsenow Kendall Heat Transfer Laboratory, Bajpayee and Govindan shared a pragmatism and penchant for action. They both worked on desalination research — Bajpayee with Professor Gang Chen and Govindan with Professor John Lienhard.

      Inspired by a childhood spent during a severe drought in Chennai, India, Govindan developed for his PhD a humidification-dehumidification technology that mimicked natural rainfall cycles. It was with this piece of technology, which they named Carrier Gas Extraction (CGE), that the duo founded Gradiant in 2013.

      The key to CGE lies in a proprietary algorithm that accounts for variability in the quality and quantity in wastewater feed. At the heart of the algorithm is a nondimensional number, which Govindan proposes one day be called the “Lienhard Number,” after his doctoral advisor.

      “When the water quality varies in the system, our technology automatically sends a signal to motors within the plant to adjust the flow rates to bring back the nondimensional number to a value of one. Once it’s brought back to a value of one, you’re running in optimal condition,” explains Govindan, who serves as chief operating officer of Gradiant.

      This system can treat and clean the wastewater produced by a manufacturing plant for reuse, ultimately conserving millions of gallons of water each year.

      As the company has grown, the Gradiant team has added new technologies to their arsenal, including Selective Contaminant Extraction, a cost-efficient method that removes only specific contaminants, and a brine-concentration method called Counter-Flow Reverse Osmosis. They now offer a full technology stack of water and wastewater treatment solutions to clients in industries including pharmaceuticals, energy, mining, food and beverage, and the ever-growing semiconductor industry.

      “We are an end-to-end water solutions provider. We have a portfolio of proprietary technologies and will pick and choose from our ‘quiver’ depending on a customer’s needs,” says Bajpayee, who serves as CEO of Gradiant. “Customers look at us as their water partner. We can take care of their water problem end-to-end so they can focus on their core business.”

      Gradiant has seen explosive growth over the past decade. With 450 water and wastewater treatment plants built to date, they treat the equivalent of 5 million households’ worth of water each day. Recent acquisitions saw their total employees rise to above 500.

      The diversity of Gradiant’s solutions is reflected in their clients, who include Pfizer, AB InBev, and Coca-Cola. They also count semiconductor giants like Micron Technology, GlobalFoundries, Intel, and TSMC among their customers.

      “Over the last few years, we have really developed our capabilities and reputation serving semiconductor wastewater and semiconductor ultrapure water,” says Bajpayee.

      Semiconductor manufacturers require ultrapure water for fabrication. Unlike drinking water, which has a total dissolved solids range in the parts per million, water used to manufacture microchips has a range in the parts per billion or quadrillion.

      Currently, the average recycling rate at semiconductor fabrication plants — or fabs — in Singapore is only 43 percent. Using Gradiant’s technologies, these fabs can recycle 98-99 percent of the 10 million gallons of water they require daily. This reused water is pure enough to be put back into the manufacturing process.

      “What we’ve done is eliminated the discharge of this contaminated water and nearly eliminated the dependence of the semiconductor fab on the public water supply,” adds Bajpayee.

      With new regulations being introduced, pressure is increasing for fabs to improve their water use, making sustainability even more important to brand owners and their stakeholders.

      As the domestic semiconductor industry expands in light of the CHIPS and Science Act, Gradiant sees an opportunity to bring their semiconductor water treatment technologies to more factories in the United States.

      Via Separations: Efficient chemical filtration

      Like Bajpayee and Govindan, Shreya Dave ’09, SM ’12, PhD ’16 focused on desalination for her doctoral thesis. Under the guidance of her advisor Jeffrey Grossman, professor of materials science and engineering, Dave built a membrane that could enable more efficient and cheaper desalination.

      A thorough cost and market analysis brought Dave to the conclusion that the desalination membrane she developed would not make it to commercialization.

      “The current technologies are just really good at what they do. They’re low-cost, mass produced, and they worked. There was no room in the market for our technology,” says Dave.

      Shortly after defending her thesis, she read a commentary article in the journal Nature that changed everything. The article outlined a problem. Chemical separations that are central to many manufacturing processes require a huge amount of energy. Industry needed more efficient and cheaper membranes. Dave thought she might have a solution.

      After determining there was an economic opportunity, Dave, Grossman, and Brent Keller PhD ’16 founded Via Separations in 2017. Shortly thereafter, they were chosen as one of the first companies to receive funding from MIT’s venture firm, The Engine.

      Currently, industrial filtration is done by heating chemicals at very high temperatures to separate compounds. Dave likens it to making pasta by boiling all of the water off until it evaporates and all you are left with is the pasta noodles. In manufacturing, this method of chemical separation is extremely energy-intensive and inefficient.

      Via Separations has created the chemical equivalent of a “pasta strainer.” Rather than using heat to separate, their membranes “strain” chemical compounds. This method of chemical filtration uses 90 percent less energy than standard methods.

      While most membranes are made of polymers, Via Separations’ membranes are made with graphene oxide, which can withstand high temperatures and harsh conditions. The membrane is calibrated to the customer’s needs by altering the pore size and tuning the surface chemistry.

      Currently, Dave and her team are focusing on the pulp and paper industry as their beachhead market. They have developed a system that makes the recovery of a substance known as “black liquor” more energy efficient.

      “When tree becomes paper, only one-third of the biomass is used for the paper. Currently the most valuable use for the remaining two-thirds not needed for paper is to take it from a pretty dilute stream to a pretty concentrated stream using evaporators by boiling off the water,” says Dave.

      This black liquor is then burned. Most of the resulting energy is used to power the filtration process.

      “This closed-loop system accounts for an enormous amount of energy consumption in the U.S. We can make that process 84 percent more efficient by putting the ‘pasta strainer’ in front of the boiler,” adds Dave.

      VulcanForms: Additive manufacturing at industrial scale

      The first semester John Hart taught at MIT was a fruitful one. He taught a course on 3D printing, broadly known as additive manufacturing (AM). While it wasn’t his main research focus at the time, he found the topic fascinating. So did many of the students in the class, including Martin Feldmann MEng ’14.

      After graduating with his MEng in advanced manufacturing, Feldmann joined Hart’s research group full time. There, they bonded over their shared interest in AM. They saw an opportunity to innovate with an established metal AM technology, known as laser powder bed fusion, and came up with a concept to realize metal AM at an industrial scale.

      The pair co-founded VulcanForms in 2015.

      “We have developed a machine architecture for metal AM that can build parts with exceptional quality and productivity,” says Hart. “And, we have integrated our machines in a fully digital production system, combining AM, postprocessing, and precision machining.”

      Unlike other companies that sell 3D printers for others to produce parts, VulcanForms makes and sells parts for their customers using their fleet of industrial machines. VulcanForms has grown to nearly 400 employees. Last year, the team opened their first production factory, known as “VulcanOne,” in Devens, Massachusetts.

      The quality and precision with which VulcanForms produces parts is critical for products like medical implants, heat exchangers, and aircraft engines. Their machines can print layers of metal thinner than a human hair.

      “We’re producing components that are difficult, or in some cases impossible to manufacture otherwise,” adds Hart, who sits on the company’s board of directors.

      The technologies developed at VulcanForms may help lead to a more sustainable way to manufacture parts and products, both directly through the additive process and indirectly through more efficient, agile supply chains.

      One way that VulcanForms, and AM in general, promotes sustainability is through material savings.

      Many of the materials VulcanForms uses, such as titanium alloys, require a great deal of energy to produce. When titanium parts are 3D-printed, substantially less of the material is used than in a traditional machining process. This material efficiency is where Hart sees AM making a large impact in terms of energy savings.

      Hart also points out that AM can accelerate innovation in clean energy technologies, ranging from more efficient jet engines to future fusion reactors.

      “Companies seeking to de-risk and scale clean energy technologies require know-how and access to advanced manufacturing capability, and industrial additive manufacturing is transformative in this regard,” Hart adds.

      LiquiGlide: Reducing waste by removing friction

      There is an unlikely culprit when it comes to waste in manufacturing and consumer products: friction. Kripa Varanasi, professor of mechanical engineering, and the team at LiquiGlide are on a mission to create a frictionless future, and substantially reduce waste in the process.

      Founded in 2012 by Varanasi and alum David Smith SM ’11, LiquiGlide designs custom coatings that enable liquids to “glide” on surfaces. Every last drop of a product can be used, whether it’s being squeezed out of a tube of toothpaste or drained from a 500-liter tank at a manufacturing plant. Making containers frictionless substantially minimizes wasted product, and eliminates the need to clean a container before recycling or reusing.

      Since launching, the company has found great success in consumer products. Customer Colgate utilized LiquiGlide’s technologies in the design of the Colgate Elixir toothpaste bottle, which has been honored with several industry awards for design. In a collaboration with world- renowned designer Yves Béhar, LiquiGlide is applying their technology to beauty and personal care product packaging. Meanwhile, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted them a Device Master Filing, opening up opportunities for the technology to be used in medical devices, drug delivery, and biopharmaceuticals.

      In 2016, the company developed a system to make manufacturing containers frictionless. Called CleanTanX, the technology is used to treat the surfaces of tanks, funnels, and hoppers, preventing materials from sticking to the side. The system can reduce material waste by up to 99 percent.

      “This could really change the game. It saves wasted product, reduces wastewater generated from cleaning tanks, and can help make the manufacturing process zero-waste,” says Varanasi, who serves as chair at LiquiGlide.

      LiquiGlide works by creating a coating made of a textured solid and liquid lubricant on the container surface. When applied to a container, the lubricant remains infused within the texture. Capillary forces stabilize and allow the liquid to spread on the surface, creating a continuously lubricated surface that any viscous material can slide right down. The company uses a thermodynamic algorithm to determine the combinations of safe solids and liquids depending on the product, whether it’s toothpaste or paint.

      The company has built a robotic spraying system that can treat large vats and tanks at manufacturing plants on site. In addition to saving companies millions of dollars in wasted product, LiquiGlide drastically reduces the amount of water needed to regularly clean these containers, which normally have product stuck to the sides.

      “Normally when you empty everything out of a tank, you still have residue that needs to be cleaned with a tremendous amount of water. In agrochemicals, for example, there are strict regulations about how to deal with the resulting wastewater, which is toxic. All of that can be eliminated with LiquiGlide,” says Varanasi.

      While the closure of many manufacturing facilities early in the pandemic slowed down the rollout of CleanTanX pilots at plants, things have picked up in recent months. As manufacturing ramps up both globally and domestically, Varanasi sees a growing need for LiquiGlide’s technologies, especially for liquids like semiconductor slurry.

      Companies like Gradiant, Via Separations, VulcanForms, and LiquiGlide demonstrate that an expansion in manufacturing industries does not need to come at a steep environmental cost. It is possible for manufacturing to be scaled up in a sustainable way.

      “Manufacturing has always been the backbone of what we do as mechanical engineers. At MIT in particular, there is always a drive to make manufacturing sustainable,” says Evelyn Wang, Ford Professor of Engineering and former head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “It’s amazing to see how startups that have an origin in our department are looking at every aspect of the manufacturing process and figuring out how to improve it for the health of our planet.”

      As legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act fuels growth in manufacturing, there will be an increased need for startups and companies that develop solutions to mitigate the environmental impact, bringing us closer to a more sustainable future. More

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      in Energy

      Evelyn Wang appointed as director of US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy

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      On Thursday, the United States Senate confirmed the appointment of Evelyn Wang, the Ford Professor of Engineering and head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, as director of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

      “I am deeply honored by the opportunity to serve as the director of ARPA-E. I’d like to thank President Biden, for his nomination to this important role, and Secretary Granholm, for her confidence in my abilities. I am thrilled to be joining the incredibly talented team at ARPA-E and look forward to helping bring innovative energy technologies that bolster our nation’s economy and national security to market,” says Wang. 

      An internationally recognized leader in applying nanotechnology to heat transfer, Wang has developed a number of high-efficiency, clean energy, and clean water solutions. Wang received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT in 2000. After receiving her master’s degree and PhD from Stanford University, she returned to MIT as a faculty member in 2007. In 2018, she was named department head of MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

      As director of ARPA-E, Wang will advance the agency’s mission to fund and support early-stage energy research that has the potential to impact energy generation, storage, and use. The agency helps researchers commercialize innovative technologies that, according to ARPA-E, “have the potential to radically improve U.S. economic prosperity, national security, and environmental well-being.”

      “I am so grateful to the Senate for confirming Dr. Evelyn Wang to serve as Director of DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said in a statement today. “Now more than ever, we rely on ARPA-E to support early-stage energy technologies that will help us tackle climate change and strengthen American competitiveness. Dr. Wang’s experience and expertise with groundbreaking research will ensure that ARPA-E continues its role as a key engine of innovation and climate action. I am deeply grateful for Dr. Wang’s willingness to serve the American people, and we’re so excited to welcome her to DOE.” 

      Wang has served as principal investigator of MIT’s Device Research Lab. She and her team have developed a number of devices that offer solutions to the world’s many energy and water challenges. These devices include an aerogel that drastically improves window insulation, a high-efficiency solar powered desalination system, a radiative cooling device that requires no electricity, and a system that pulls potable water out of air, even in arid conditions.

      Throughout her career, Wang has been recognized with multiple awards and honors. In 2021, she was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She received the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) Gustus L. Memorial Award for outstanding achievement in mechanical engineering in 2017 and was named an ASME Fellow in 2015. Having mentored and advised hundreds of students at MIT, Wang was honored with a MIT Committed to Caring Award for her commitment to mentoring graduate students. She has also served as co-chair of the inaugural Rising Stars in Mechanical Engineering program to encourage women graduate students and postdocs considering future careers in academia.

      As department head, Wang has led and implemented a variety of strategic research, educational, and community initiatives in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. Alongside other departmental leaders, she led a focus on groundbreaking research advances that help address several “grand challenges” that our world faces. She worked closely with faculty and teaching staff on developing educational offerings that prepare the next generation of mechanical engineers for the workforce. She also championed new initiatives to make the department a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive community for students, faculty, and staff. 

      Wang, who is stepping down as department head effective immediately in light of her confirmation, will be taking a temporary leave as a faculty member at MIT while she serves in this role. MIT School of Engineering Dean Anantha Chandrakasan will share plans for the search for her replacement with the mechanical engineering community in the coming days.

      Once sworn in, Wang will officially assume her role as director of ARPA-E. More

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      in Energy

      Pursuing a practical approach to research

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      Koroush Shirvan, the John Clark Hardwick Career Development Professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), knows that the nuclear industry has traditionally been wary of innovations until they are shown to have proven utility. As a result, he has relentlessly focused on practical applications in his research, work that has netted him the 2022 Reactor Technology Award from the American Nuclear Society. “The award has usually recognized practical contributions to the field of reactor design and has not often gone to academia,” Shirvan says.

      One of these “practical contributions” is in the field of accident-tolerant fuels, a program launched by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi incident. The goal within this program, says Shirvan, is to develop new forms of nuclear fuels that can tolerate heat. His team, with students from over 16 countries, is working on numerous possibilities that range in composition and method of production.

      Another aspect of Shirvan’s research focuses on how radiation impacts heat transfer mechanisms in the reactor. The team found fuel corrosion to be the driving force. “[The research] informs how nuclear fuels perform in the reactor, from a practical point of view,” Shirvan says.

      Optimizing nuclear reactor design

      A summer internship when Shirvan was an undergraduate at the University of Florida at Gainesville seeded his drive to focus on practical applications in his studies. A nearby nuclear utility was losing millions because of crud accumulating on fuel rods. Over time, the company was solving the problem by using more fuel, before it had extracted all the life from earlier batches.

      Placement of fuel rods in nuclear reactors is a complex problem with many factors — the life of the fuel, location of hot spots — affecting outcomes. Nuclear reactors change their configuration of fuel rods every 18-24 months to optimize close to 15-20 constraints, leading to roughly 200-800 assemblies. The mind-boggling nature of the problem means that plants have to rely on experienced engineers.

      During his internship, Shirvan optimized the program used to place fuel rods in the reactor. He found that certain rods in assemblies were more prone to the crud deposits, and reworked their configurations, optimizing for these rods’ performance instead of adding assemblies.

      In recent years, Shirvan has applied a branch of artificial intelligence — reinforcement learning — to the configuration problem and created a software program used by the largest U.S. nuclear utility. “This program gives even a layperson the ability to reconfigure the fuels and the reactor without having expert knowledge,” Shirvan says.

      From advanced math to counting jelly beans

      Shirvan’s own expertise in nuclear science and engineering developed quite organically. He grew up in Tehran, Iran, and when he was 14 the family moved to Gainesville, where Shirvan’s aunt and family live. He remembers an awkward couple of years at the new high school where he was grouped in with newly arrived international students, and placed in entry-level classes. “I went from doing advanced mathematics in Iran to counting jelly beans,” he laughs.

      Shirvan applied to the University of Florida for his undergraduate studies since it made economic sense; the school gave full scholarships to Floridian students who received a certain minimum SAT score. Shirvan qualified. His uncle, who was a professor in the nuclear engineering department then, encouraged Shirvan to take classes in the department. Under his uncle’s mentorship, the courses Shirvan took, and his internship, cemented his love of the interdisciplinary approach that the field demanded.

      Having always known that he wanted to teach — he remembers finishing his math tests early in Tehran so he could earn the reward of being class monitor — Shirvan knew graduate school was next. His uncle encouraged him to apply to MIT and to the University of Michigan, home to reputable programs in the field. Shirvan chose MIT because “only at MIT was there a program on nuclear design. There were faculty dedicated to designing new reactors, looking at multiple disciplines, and putting all of that together.” He went on to pursue his master’s and doctoral studies at NSE under the supervision of Professor Mujid Kazimi, focusing on compact pressurized and boiling water reactor designs. When Kazimi passed away suddenly in 2015, Shirvan was a research scientist, and switched to tenure track to guide the professor’s team.

      Another project that Shirvan took in 2015: leadership of MIT’s course on nuclear reactor technology for utility executives. Offered only by the Institute, the program is an introduction to nuclear engineering and safety for personnel who might not have much background in the area. “It’s a great course because you get to see what the real problems are in the energy sector … like grid stability,” Shirvan says.

      A multipronged approach to savings

      Another very real problem nuclear utilities face is cost. Contrary to what one hears on the news, one of the biggest stumbling blocks to building new nuclear facilities in the United States is cost, which today can be up to three times that of renewables, Shirvan says. While many approaches such as advanced manufacturing have been tried, Shirvan believes that the solution to decrease expenditures lies in designing more compact reactors.

      His team has developed an open-source advanced nuclear cost tool and has focused on two different designs: a small water reactor using compact steam technology and a horizontal gas reactor. Compactness also means making fuels more efficient, as Shirvan’s work does, and in improving the heat exchange device. It’s all back to the basics and bringing “commercial viable arguments in with your research,” Shirvan explains.

      Shirvan is excited about the future of the U.S. nuclear industry, and that the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act grants the same subsidies to nuclear as it does for renewables. In this new level playing field, advanced nuclear still has a long way to go in terms of affordability, he admits. “It’s time to push forward with cost-effective design,” Shirvan says, “I look forward to supporting this by continuing to guide these efforts with research from my team.” More

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      in Environment

      Machinery of the state

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      In Mai Hassan’s studies of Kenya, she documented the emergence of a sprawling administrative network officially billed as encouraging economic development, overseeing the population, and bolstering democracy. But Hassan’s field interviews and archival research revealed a more sinister purpose for the hundreds of administrative and security offices dotting the nation: “They were there to do the presidents’ bidding, which often involved coercing their own countrymen.”

      This research served as a catalyst for Hassan, who joined MIT as an associate professor of political science in July, to investigate what she calls the “politicized management of bureaucracy and the state.” She set out to “understand the motivations, capacities, and roles of people administering state programs and social functions,” she says. “I realized the state is not a faceless being, but instead comprised of bureaucrats carrying out functions on behalf of the state and the regime that runs it.”

      Today, Hassan’s portfolio encompasses not just the bureaucratic state but democratization efforts in Kenya and elsewhere in the East Africa region, including her native Sudan. Her research highlights the difficulties of democratization. “I’m finding that the conditions under which people come together for overthrowing an autocratic regime really matter, because those conditions may actually impede a nation from achieving democracy,” she says.

      A coordinated bureaucracy

      Hassan’s academic engagement with the state’s administrative machinery began during graduate school at Harvard University, where she earned her master’s and doctorate in government. While working with a community trash and sanitation program in some Kenyan Maasai communities, Hassan recalls “shepherding myself from office to office, meeting different bureaucrats to obtain the same approvals but for different jurisdictions.” The Kenyan state had recently set up hundreds of new local administrative units, motivated by what it claimed was the need for greater efficiency. But to Hassan’s eyes, “the administrative network was not well organized, seemed costly to maintain, and seemed to hinder — not bolster — development,” she says. What then, she wondered, was “the political logic behind such state restructuring?”

      Hassan began researching this bureaucratic transformation of Kenya, speaking with administrators in communities large and small who were charged with handling the business of the state. These studies yielded a wealth of findings for her dissertation, and for multiple journals.

      But upon finishing this tranche of research, Hassan realized that it was insufficient simply to study the structure of the state. “Understanding the role of new administrative structures for politics, development, and governance fundamentally requires that we understand who the government has put in charge of them,” she says. Among her insights:

      “The president’s office knows a lot of these administrators, and thinks about their strengths, limitations, and fit within a community,” says Hassan. Some administrators served the purposes of the central government by setting up water irrigation projects or building a new school. But in other villages, the state chose administrators who could act “much more coercively, ignoring development needs, throwing youth who supported the opposition into jail, and spending resources exclusively on policing.”

      Hassan’s work showed that in communities characterized by strong political opposition, “the local administration was always more coercive, regardless of an elected or autocratic president,” she says. Notably, the tenures of such officials proved shorter than those of their peers. “Once administrators get to know a community — going to church and the market with residents — it’s hard to coerce them,” explains Hassan.

      These short tenures come with costs, she notes: “Spending significant time in a station is useful for development, because you know exactly whom to hire if you want to build a school or get something done efficiently.” Politicizing these assignments undermines efforts at delivery of services and, more broadly, economic improvement nationwide. “Regimes that are more invested in retaining power must devote resources to establishing and maintaining control, resources that could otherwise be used for development and the welfare of citizens,” she says.

      Hassan wove together her research covering three presidents over a 50-year period, in the book, “Regime Threats and State Solutions: Bureaucratic Loyalty and Embeddedness in Kenya” (2020, Cambridge University Press), named a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2020.

      Sudanese roots

      The role of the state in fulfilling the needs of its citizens has long fascinated Hassan. Her grandfather, who had served as Sudan’s ambassador to the USSR, talked to her about the advantages of a centralized government “that allocated resources to reduce inequality,” she says.

      Politics often dominated the conversation in gatherings of Hassan’s family and friends. Her parents immigrated to northern Virginia when she was very young, and many relatives joined them, part of a steady flow of Sudanese fleeing political turmoil and oppression.

      “A lot of people had expected more from the Sudanese state after independence and didn’t get it,” she says. “People had hopes for what the government could and should do.”

      Hassan’s Sudanese roots and ongoing connection to the Sudanese community have shaped her academic interests and goals. At the University of Virginia, she gravitated toward history and economics classes. But it was her time at the Ralph Bunche Summer institute that perhaps proved most pivotal in her journey. This five-week intensive program is offered by the American Political Science Association to introduce underrepresented undergraduate students to doctoral studies. “It was really compelling in this program to think rigorously about all the political ideas I’d heard as I was growing up, and find ways to challenge some assertions empirically,” she says.

      Regime change and civil society

      At Harvard, Hassan first set out to focus on Sudan for her doctoral program. “There wasn’t much scholarship on the country, and what there was lacked rigor,” she says. “That was something that needed to change.” But she decided to postpone this goal after realizing that she might be vulnerable as a student conducting field research there. She landed instead in Kenya, where she honed her interviewing and data collection skills.

      Today, empowered by her prior work, she has returned to Sudan. “I felt that the popular uprising in Sudan and ousting of the Islamist regime in 2019 should be documented and analyzed,” she says. “It was incredible that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, acted collectively to uproot a dictator, in the face of brutal violence from the state.”But “democracy is still uncertain there,” says Hassan. The broad coalition behind regime change “doesn’t know how to govern because different people and different sectors of society have different ideas about what democratic Sudan should look like,” she says. “Overthrowing an autocratic regime and having civil society come together to figure out what’s going to replace it require different things, and it’s unclear if a movement that accomplishes the first is well-suited to do the second.”

      Hassan believes that in order to create lasting democratization, “you need the hard work of building organizations, developing ways in which members learn to compromise among themselves, and make decisions and rules for how to move forward.”

      Hassan is enjoying the fall semester and teaching courses on autocracy and authoritarian regimes. She is excited as well about developing her work on African efforts at democratic mobilization in a political science department she describes as “policy-forward.”

      Over time, she hopes to connect with Institute scholars in the hard sciences to think about other challenges these nations are facing, such as climate change. “It’s really hot in Sudan, and it may be one of the first countries to become completely uninhabitable,” she says. “I’d like to explore strategies for growing crops differently or managing the exceedingly scarce resource of water, and figure out what kind of political discussions will be necessary to implement any changes. It is really critical to think about these problems in an interdisciplinary way.” More

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      in Energy

      On batteries, teaching, and world peace

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      Over his long career as an electrochemist and professor, Donald Sadoway has earned an impressive variety of honors, from being named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2012 to appearing on “The Colbert Report,” where he talked about “renewable energy and world peace,” according to Comedy Central.

      What does he personally consider to be his top achievements?

      “That’s easy,” he says immediately. “For teaching, it’s 3.091,” the MIT course on solid-state chemistry he led for some 18 years. An MIT core requirement, 3.091 is also one of the largest classes at the Institute. In 2003 it was the largest, with 630 students. Sadoway, who retires this year after 45 years in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, estimates that over the years he’s taught the course to some 10,000 undergraduates.

      A passion for teaching

      Along the way he turned the class into an MIT favorite, complete with music, art, and literature. “I brought in all that enrichment because I knew that 95 percent of the students in that room weren’t going to major in anything chemical and this might be the last class they’d take in the subject. But it’s a requirement. So they’re 18 years old, they’re very smart, and many of them are very bored. You have to find a hook [to reach them]. And I did.”

      In 1995, Sadoway was named a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, an honor that recognizes outstanding classroom teaching at the Institute. Among the communications in support of his nomination:

      “His contributions are enormous and the class is in rapt attention from beginning to end. His lectures are highly articulate yet animated and he has uncommon grace and style. I was awed by his ability to introduce playful and creative elements into a core lecture…”

      Bill Gates would agree. In the early 2000s Sadoway’s lectures were shared with the world through OpenCourseWare, the web-based publication of MIT course materials. Gates was so inspired by the lectures that he asked to meet with Sadoway to learn more about his research. (Sadoway initially ignored Gates’ email because he thought his account had been hacked by MIT pranksters.)

      Research breakthroughs

      Teaching is not Sadoway’s only passion. He’s also proud of his accomplishments in electrochemistry. The discipline that involves electron transfer reactions is key to everything from batteries to the primary extraction of metals like aluminum and magnesium. “It’s quite wide-ranging,” says the John F. Elliott Professor Emeritus of Materials Chemistry.

      Sadoway’s contributions include two battery breakthroughs. First came the liquid metal battery, which could enable the large-scale storage of renewable energy. “That represents a huge step forward in the transition to green energy,” said António Campinos, president of the European Patent Office, earlier this year when Sadoway won the 2022 European Inventor Award for the invention in the category for Non-European Patent Office Countries.

      On “The Colbert Report,” Sadoway alluded to that work when he told Stephen Colbert that electrochemistry is the key to world peace. Why? Because it could lead to a battery capable of storing energy from the sun when the sun doesn’t shine and otherwise make renewables an important part of the clean energy mix. And that in turn could “plummet the price of petroleum and depose dictators all over the world without one shot being fired,” he recently recalled.

      The liquid metal battery is the focus of Ambri, one of six companies based on Sadoway’s inventions. Bill Gates was the first funder of the company, which formed in 2010 and aims to install its first battery soon. That battery will store energy from a reported 500 megawatts of on-site renewable generation, the same output as a natural gas power plant.

      Then, in August of this year, Sadoway and colleagues published a paper in Nature about “one of the first new battery chemistries in 30 years,” Sadoway says. “I wanted to invent something that was better, much better,” than the expensive lithium-ion batteries used in, for example, today’s electric cars.

      That battery is the focus of Avanti, one of three Sadoway companies formed just last year. The other two are Pure Lithium, to commercialize his inventions related to that element, and Sadoway Labs. The latter, a nonprofit, is essentially “a space to try radical innovations. We’re gonna start working on wild ideas.”

      Another focus of Sadoway’s research: green steel. Steelmaking produces huge amounts of greenhouse gases. Enter Boston Metal, another Sadoway company. This one is developing a new approach to producing steel based on research begun some 25 years ago. Unlike the current technology for producing steel, the Boston Metal approach — molten oxide electrolysis — does not use the element at the root of steel’s problems: carbon. The principal byproduct of the new system? Oxygen.

      In 2012, Sadoway gave a TED talk to 2,000 people on the liquid metal battery. He believes that that talk, which has now been seen by almost 2.5 million people, led to the wider publicity of his work — and science overall — on “The Colbert Report” and elsewhere. “The moral here is that if you step out of your comfort zone, you might be surprised at what can happen,” he concludes.

      Colleagues’ reflections

      “I met Don in 2006 when I was working for the iron and steel industry in Europe on ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the production of those materials,” says Antoine Allanore, professor of metallurgy, Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “He was the same Don Sadoway that you see in recordings of his lectures: very elegant, very charismatic, and passionate about the technical solutions and underlying science of the process we were all investigating; electrolysis. A few years later, when I decided to pursue an academic career, I contacted Don and became a postdoctoral associate in his lab. That ultimately led to my becoming an MIT professor. People don’t believe me, but before I came to MIT the only thing I knew about the Institute was that Noam Chomsky was there … and Don Sadoway. And I felt, that’s a great place to be. And I stayed because I saw the exceptional things that can be accomplished at MIT and Don is the perfect example of that.”

      “I had the joy of meeting Don when I first arrived on the MIT campus in 1994,” recalls Felice Frankel, research scientist in the MIT departments of Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. “I didn’t have to talk him into the idea that researchers needed to take their images and graphics more seriously.  He got it — that it wasn’t just about pretty pictures. He was an important part of our five-year National Science Foundation project — Picturing to Learn — to bring that concept into the classroom. How lucky that was for me!”

      “Don has been a friend and mentor since we met in 1995 when I was an MIT senior,” says Luis Ortiz, co-founder and chief executive officer, Avanti Battery Co. “One story that is emblematic of Don’s insistence on excellence is from when he and I met with Bill Gates about the challenges in addressing climate change and how batteries could be the linchpin in solving them. I suggested that we create our presentation in PowerPoint [Microsoft software]. Don balked. He insisted that we present using Keynote on his MacBook Air, because ‘it looks so much better.’ I was incredulous that he wanted to walk into that venue exclusively using Apple products. Of course, he won the argument, but not without my admonition that there had better not be even a blip of an issue. In the meeting room, Microsoft’s former chief technology officer asked Don if he needed anything to hook up to the screen, ‘we have all those dongles.’ Don declined, but gave me that knowing look and whispered, ‘You see, they know, too.’ I ate my crow and we had a great long conversation without any issues.”

      “I remember when I first started working with Don on the liquid metal battery project at MIT, after I had chosen it as the topic for my master’s of engineering thesis,” adds David Bradwell, co-founder and chief technology officer, Ambri. “I was a wide-eyed graduate student, sitting in his office, amongst his art deco decorations, unique furniture, and historical and stylistic infographics, and from our first meeting, I could see Don’s passion for coming up with new and creative, yet practical scientific ideas, and for working on hard problems, in service of society. Don’s approaches always appear to be unconventional — wanting to stand out in a crowd, take the path less trodden, both based on his ideas, and his sense of style. It’s been an amazing journey working with him over the past decade-and-a-half, and I remain excited to see what other new, unconventional ideas, he can bring to this world.” More

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      in Energy

      Simplifying the production of lithium-ion batteries

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      When it comes to battery innovations, much attention gets paid to potential new chemistries and materials. Often overlooked is the importance of production processes for bringing down costs.

      Now the MIT spinout 24M Technologies has simplified lithium-ion battery production with a new design that requires fewer materials and fewer steps to manufacture each cell. The company says the design, which it calls “SemiSolid” for its use of gooey electrodes, reduces production costs by up to 40 percent. The approach also improves the batteries’ energy density, safety, and recyclability.

      Judging by industry interest, 24M is onto something. Since coming out of stealth mode in 2015, 24M has licensed its technology to multinational companies including Volkswagen, Fujifilm, Lucas TVS, Axxiva, and Freyr. Those last three companies are planning to build gigafactories (factories with gigawatt-scale annual production capacity) based on 24M’s technology in India, China, Norway, and the United States.

      “The SemiSolid platform has been proven at the scale of hundreds of megawatts being produced for residential energy-storage systems. Now we want to prove it at the gigawatt scale,” says 24M CEO Naoki Ota, whose team includes 24M co-founder, chief scientist, and MIT Professor Yet-Ming Chiang.

      Establishing large-scale production lines is only the first phase of 24M’s plan. Another key draw of its battery design is that it can work with different combinations of lithium-ion chemistries. That means 24M’s partners can incorporate better-performing materials down the line without substantially changing manufacturing processes.

      The kind of quick, large-scale production of next-generation batteries that 24M hopes to enable could have a dramatic impact on battery adoption across society — from the cost and performance of electric cars to the ability of renewable energy to replace fossil fuels.

      “This is a platform technology,” Ota says. “We’re not just a low-cost and high-reliability operator. That’s what we are today, but we can also be competitive with next-generation chemistry. We can use any chemistry in the market without customers changing their supply chains. Other startups are trying to address that issue tomorrow, not today. Our tech can address the issue today and tomorrow.”

      A simplified design

      Chiang, who is MIT’s Kyocera Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, got his first glimpse into large-scale battery production after co-founding another battery company, A123 Systems, in 2001. As that company was preparing to go public in the late 2000s, Chiang began wondering if he could design a battery that would be easier to manufacture.

      “I got this window into what battery manufacturing looked like, and what struck me was that even though we pulled it off, it was an incredibly complicated manufacturing process,” Chiang says. “It derived from magnetic tape manufacturing that was adapted to batteries in the late 1980s.”

      In his lab at MIT, where he’s been a professor since 1985, Chiang started from scratch with a new kind of device he called a “semi-solid flow battery” that pumps liquids carrying particle-based electrodes to and from tanks to store a charge.

      In 2010, Chiang partnered with W. Craig Carter, who is MIT’s POSCO Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and the two professors supervised a student, Mihai Duduta ’11, who explored flow batteries for his undergraduate thesis. Within a month, Duduta had developed a prototype in Chiang’s lab, and 24M was born. (Duduta was the company’s first hire.)

      But even as 24M worked with MIT’s Technology Licensing Office (TLO) to commercialize research done in Chiang’s lab, people in the company including Duduta began rethinking the flow battery concept. An internal cost analysis by Carter, who consulted for 24M for several years, ultimately lead the researchers to change directions.

      That left the company with loads of the gooey slurry that made up the electrodes in their flow batteries. A few weeks after Carter’s cost analysis, Duduta, then a senior research scientist at 24M, decided to start using the slurry to assemble batteries by hand, mixing the gooey electrodes directly into the electrolyte. The idea caught on.

      The main components of batteries are the positive and negatively charged electrodes and the electrolyte material that allows ions to flow between them. Traditional lithium-ion batteries use solid electrodes separated from the electrolyte by layers of inert plastics and metals, which hold the electrodes in place.

      Stripping away the inert materials of traditional batteries and embracing the gooey electrode mix gives 24M’s design a number of advantages.

      For one, it eliminates the energy-intensive process of drying and solidifying the electrodes in traditional lithium-ion production. The company says it also reduces the need for more than 80 percent of the inactive materials in traditional batteries, including expensive ones like copper and aluminum. The design also requires no binder and features extra thick electrodes, improving the energy density of the batteries.

      “When you start a company, the smart thing to do is to revisit all of your assumptions  and ask what is the best way to accomplish your objectives, which in our case was simply-manufactured, low-cost batteries,” Chiang says. “We decided our real value was in making a lithium-ion suspension that was electrochemically active from the beginning, with electrolyte in it, and you just use the electrolyte as the processing solvent.”

      In 2017, 24M participated in the MIT Industrial Liaison Program’s STEX25 Startup Accelerator, in which Chiang and collaborators made critical industry connections that would help it secure early partnerships. 24M has also collaborated with MIT researchers on projects funded by the Department of Energy.

      Enabling the battery revolution

      Most of 24M’s partners are eyeing the rapidly growing electric vehicle (EV) market for their batteries, and the founders believe their technology will accelerate EV adoption. (Battery costs make up 30 to 40 percent of the price of EVs, according to the Institute for Energy Research).

      “Lithium-ion batteries have made huge improvements over the years, but even Elon Musk says we need some breakthrough technology,” Ota says, referring to the CEO of EV firm Tesla. “To make EVs more common, we need a production cost breakthrough; we can’t just rely on cost reduction through scaling because we already make a lot of batteries today.”

      24M is also working to prove out new battery chemistries that its partners could quickly incorporate into their gigafactories. In January of this year, 24M received a grant from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program to develop and scale a high-energy-density battery that uses a lithium metal anode and semi-solid cathode for use in electric aviation.

      That project is one of many around the world designed to validate new lithium-ion battery chemistries that could enable a long-sought battery revolution. As 24M continues to foster the creation of large scale, global production lines, the team believes it is well-positioned to turn lab innovations into ubiquitous, world-changing products.

      “This technology is a platform, and our vision is to be like Google’s Android [operating system], where other people can build things on our platform,” Ota says. “We want to do that but with hardware. That’s why we’re licensing the technology. Our partners can use the same production lines to get the benefits of new chemistries and approaches. This platform gives everyone more options.” More