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    Unlocking ammonia as a fuel source for heavy industry

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    At a high level, ammonia seems like a dream fuel: It’s carbon-free, energy-dense, and easier to move and store than hydrogen. Ammonia is also already manufactured and transported at scale, meaning it could transform energy systems using existing infrastructure. But burning ammonia creates dangerous nitrous oxides, and splitting ammonia molecules to create hydrogen fuel typically requires lots of energy and specialized engines.The startup Amogy, founded by four MIT alumni, believes it has the technology to finally unlock ammonia as a major fuel source. The company has developed a catalyst it says can split — or “crack” — ammonia into hydrogen and nitrogen up to 70 percent more efficiently than state-of-the-art systems today. The company is planning to sell its catalysts as well as modular systems including fuel cells and engines to convert ammonia directly to power. Those systems don’t burn or combust ammonia, and thus bypass the health concerns related to nitrous oxides.Since Amogy’s founding in 2020, the company has used its ammonia-cracking technology to create the world’s first ammonia-powered drone, tractor, truck, and tugboat. It has also attracted partnerships with industry leaders including Samsung, Saudi Aramco, KBR, and Hyundai, raising more than $300 million along the way.“No one has showcased that ammonia can be used to power things at the scale of ships and trucks like us,” says CEO Seonghoon Woo PhD ’15, who founded the company with Hyunho Kim PhD ’18, Jongwon Choi PhD ’17, and Young Suk Jo SM ’13, PhD ’16. “We’ve demonstrated this approach works and is scalable.”Earlier this year, Amogy completed a research and manufacturing facility in Houston and announced a pilot deployment of its catalyst with the global engineering firm JGC Holdings Corporation. Now, with a manufacturing contract secured with Samsung Heavy Industries, Amogy is set to start delivering more of its systems to customers next year. The company will deploy a 1-megawatt ammonia-to-power pilot project with the South Korean city of Pohang in 2026, with plans to scale up to 40 megawatts at that site by 2028 or 2029. Woo says dozens of other projects with multinational corporations are in the works.Because of the power density advantages of ammonia over renewables and batteries, the company is targeting power-hungry industries like maritime shipping, power generation, construction, and mining for its early systems.“This is only the beginning,” Woo says. “We’ve worked hard to build the technology and the foundation of our company, but the real value will be generated as we scale. We’ve proved the potential for ammonia to decarbonize heavy industry, and now we really want to accelerate adoption of our technology. We’re thinking long term about the energy transition.”Unlocking a new fuel sourceWoo completed his PhD in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering before his eventual co-founders, Kim, Choi, and Jo, completed their PhDs in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. Jo worked on energy science and ran experiments to make engines run more efficiently as part of his PhD.“The PhD programs at MIT teach you how to think deeply about solving technical problems using systems-based approaches,” Woo says. “You also realize the value in learning from failures, and that mindset of iteration is similar to what you need to do in startups.”In 2020, Woo was working in the semiconductor industry when he reached out to his eventual co-founders asking if they were working on anything interesting. At that time, Jo was still working on energy systems based on hydrogen and ammonia while Kim was developing new catalysts to create ammonia fuel.“I wanted to start a company and build a business to do good things for society,” Woo recalls. “People had been talking about hydrogen as a more sustainable fuel source, but it had never come to fruition. We thought there might be a way to improve ammonia catalyst technology and accelerate the hydrogen economy.”The founders started experimenting with Jo’s technology for ammonia cracking, the process in which ammonia (NH3) molecules split into their nitrogen (N2) and hydrogen (H2) constituent parts. Ammonia cracking to date has been done at huge plants in high-temperature reactors that require large amounts of energy. Those high temperatures limited the catalyst materials that could be used to drive the reaction.Starting from scratch, the founders were able to identify new material recipes that could be used to miniaturize the catalyst and work at lower temperatures. The proprietary catalyst materials allow the company to create a system that can be deployed in new places at lower costs.“We really had to redevelop the whole technology, including the catalyst and reformer, and even the integration with the larger system,” Woo says. “One of the most important things is we don’t combust ammonia — we don’t need pilot fuel, and we don’t generate any nitrogen gas or CO2.”Today Amogy has a portfolio of proprietary catalyst technologies that use base metals along with precious metals. The company has proven the efficiency of its catalysts in demonstrations beginning with the first ammonia-powered drone in 2021. The catalyst can be used to produce hydrogen more efficiently, and by integrating the catalyst with hydrogen fuel cells or engines, Amogy also offers modular ammonia-to-power systems that can scale to meet customer energy demands.“We’re enabling the decarbonization of heavy industry,” Woo says. “We are targeting transportation, chemical production, manufacturing, and industries that are carbon-heavy and need to decarbonize soon, for example to achieve domestic goals. Our vision in the longer term is to enable ammonia as a fuel in a variety of applications, including power generation, first at microgrids and then eventually full grid-scale.”Scaling with industryWhen Amogy completed its facility in Houston, one of their early visitors was MIT Professor Evelyn Wang, who is also MIT’s vice president for energy and climate. Woo says other people involved in the Climate Project at MIT have been supportive.Another key partner for Amogy is Samsung Heavy Industries, which announced a multiyear deal to manufacturing Amogy’s ammonia-to-power systems on Nov. 12.“Our strategy is to partner with the existing big players in heavy industry to accelerate the commercialization of our technology,” Woo says. “We have worked with big oil and gas companies like BHP and Saudi Aramco, companies interested in hydrogen fuel like KBR and Mitsubishi, and many more industrial companies.”When paired with other clean energy technologies to provide the power for its systems, Woo says Amogy offers a way to completely decarbonize sectors of the economy that can’t electrify on their own.“In heavy transport, you have to use high-energy density liquid fuel because of the long distances and power requirements,” Woo says. “Batteries can’t meet those requirements. It’s why hydrogen is such an exciting molecule for heavy industry and shipping. But hydrogen needs to be kept super cold, whereas ammonia can be liquid at room temperature. Our job now is to provide that power at scale.” More

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      Unlocking ammonia as a fuel source for heavy industry

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      At a high level, ammonia seems like a dream fuel: It’s carbon-free, energy-dense, and easier to move and store than hydrogen. Ammonia is also already manufactured and transported at scale, meaning it could transform energy systems using existing infrastructure. But burning ammonia creates dangerous nitrous oxides, and splitting ammonia molecules to create hydrogen fuel typically requires lots of energy and specialized engines.The startup Amogy, founded by four MIT alumni, believes it has the technology to finally unlock ammonia as a major fuel source. The company has developed a catalyst it says can split — or “crack” — ammonia into hydrogen and nitrogen up to 70 percent more efficiently than state-of-the-art systems today. The company is planning to sell its catalysts as well as modular systems including fuel cells and engines to convert ammonia directly to power. Those systems don’t burn or combust ammonia, and thus bypass the health concerns related to nitrous oxides.Since Amogy’s founding in 2020, the company has used its ammonia-cracking technology to create the world’s first ammonia-powered drone, tractor, truck, and tugboat. It has also attracted partnerships with industry leaders including Samsung, Saudi Aramco, KBR, and Hyundai, raising more than $300 million along the way.“No one has showcased that ammonia can be used to power things at the scale of ships and trucks like us,” says CEO Seonghoon Woo PhD ’15, who founded the company with Hyunho Kim PhD ’18, Jongwon Choi PhD ’17, and Young Suk Jo SM ’13, PhD ’16. “We’ve demonstrated this approach works and is scalable.”Earlier this year, Amogy completed a research and manufacturing facility in Houston and announced a pilot deployment of its catalyst with the global engineering firm JGC Holdings Corporation. Now, with a manufacturing contract secured with Samsung Heavy Industries, Amogy is set to start delivering more of its systems to customers next year. The company will deploy a 1-megawatt ammonia-to-power pilot project with the South Korean city of Pohang in 2026, with plans to scale up to 40 megawatts at that site by 2028 or 2029. Woo says dozens of other projects with multinational corporations are in the works.Because of the power density advantages of ammonia over renewables and batteries, the company is targeting power-hungry industries like maritime shipping, power generation, construction, and mining for its early systems.“This is only the beginning,” Woo says. “We’ve worked hard to build the technology and the foundation of our company, but the real value will be generated as we scale. We’ve proved the potential for ammonia to decarbonize heavy industry, and now we really want to accelerate adoption of our technology. We’re thinking long term about the energy transition.”Unlocking a new fuel sourceWoo completed his PhD in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering before his eventual co-founders, Kim, Choi, and Jo, completed their PhDs in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. Jo worked on energy science and ran experiments to make engines run more efficiently as part of his PhD.“The PhD programs at MIT teach you how to think deeply about solving technical problems using systems-based approaches,” Woo says. “You also realize the value in learning from failures, and that mindset of iteration is similar to what you need to do in startups.”In 2020, Woo was working in the semiconductor industry when he reached out to his eventual co-founders asking if they were working on anything interesting. At that time, Jo was still working on energy systems based on hydrogen and ammonia while Kim was developing new catalysts to create ammonia fuel.“I wanted to start a company and build a business to do good things for society,” Woo recalls. “People had been talking about hydrogen as a more sustainable fuel source, but it had never come to fruition. We thought there might be a way to improve ammonia catalyst technology and accelerate the hydrogen economy.”The founders started experimenting with Jo’s technology for ammonia cracking, the process in which ammonia (NH3) molecules split into their nitrogen (N2) and hydrogen (H2) constituent parts. Ammonia cracking to date has been done at huge plants in high-temperature reactors that require large amounts of energy. Those high temperatures limited the catalyst materials that could be used to drive the reaction.Starting from scratch, the founders were able to identify new material recipes that could be used to miniaturize the catalyst and work at lower temperatures. The proprietary catalyst materials allow the company to create a system that can be deployed in new places at lower costs.“We really had to redevelop the whole technology, including the catalyst and reformer, and even the integration with the larger system,” Woo says. “One of the most important things is we don’t combust ammonia — we don’t need pilot fuel, and we don’t generate any nitrogen gas or CO2.”Today Amogy has a portfolio of proprietary catalyst technologies that use base metals along with precious metals. The company has proven the efficiency of its catalysts in demonstrations beginning with the first ammonia-powered drone in 2021. The catalyst can be used to produce hydrogen more efficiently, and by integrating the catalyst with hydrogen fuel cells or engines, Amogy also offers modular ammonia-to-power systems that can scale to meet customer energy demands.“We’re enabling the decarbonization of heavy industry,” Woo says. “We are targeting transportation, chemical production, manufacturing, and industries that are carbon-heavy and need to decarbonize soon, for example to achieve domestic goals. Our vision in the longer term is to enable ammonia as a fuel in a variety of applications, including power generation, first at microgrids and then eventually full grid-scale.”Scaling with industryWhen Amogy completed its facility in Houston, one of their early visitors was MIT Professor Evelyn Wang, who is also MIT’s vice president for energy and climate. Woo says other people involved in the Climate Project at MIT have been supportive.Another key partner for Amogy is Samsung Heavy Industries, which announced a multiyear deal to manufacturing Amogy’s ammonia-to-power systems on Nov. 12.“Our strategy is to partner with the existing big players in heavy industry to accelerate the commercialization of our technology,” Woo says. “We have worked with big oil and gas companies like BHP and Saudi Aramco, companies interested in hydrogen fuel like KBR and Mitsubishi, and many more industrial companies.”When paired with other clean energy technologies to provide the power for its systems, Woo says Amogy offers a way to completely decarbonize sectors of the economy that can’t electrify on their own.“In heavy transport, you have to use high-energy density liquid fuel because of the long distances and power requirements,” Woo says. “Batteries can’t meet those requirements. It’s why hydrogen is such an exciting molecule for heavy industry and shipping. But hydrogen needs to be kept super cold, whereas ammonia can be liquid at room temperature. Our job now is to provide that power at scale.” More

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      in Energy

      From nanoscale to global scale: Advancing MIT’s special initiatives in manufacturing, health, and climate

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      “MIT.nano is essential to making progress in high-priority areas where I believe that MIT has a responsibility to lead,” opened MIT president Sally Kornbluth at the 2025 Nano Summit. “If we harness our collective efforts, we can make a serious positive impact.”It was these collective efforts that drove discussions at the daylong event hosted by MIT.nano and focused on the importance of nanoscience and nanotechnology across MIT’s special initiatives — projects deemed critical to MIT’s mission to help solve the world’s greatest challenges. With each new talk, common themes were reemphasized: collaboration across fields, solutions that can scale up from lab to market, and the use of nanoscale science to enact grand-scale change.“MIT.nano has truly set itself apart, in the Institute’s signature way, with an emphasis on cross-disciplinary collaboration and open access,” said Kornbluth. “Today, you’re going to hear about the transformative impact of nanoscience and nanotechnology, and how working with the very small can help us do big things for the world together.”Collaborating on healthAngela Koehler, faculty director of the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS) and the Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Professor of Biological Engineering, opened the first session with a question: How can we build a community across campus to tackle some of the most transformative problems in human health? In response, three speakers shared their work enabling new frontiers in medicine.Ana Jaklenec, principal research scientist at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, spoke about single-injection vaccines, and how her team looked to the techniques used in fabrication of electrical engineering components to see how multiple pieces could be packaged into a tiny device. “MIT.nano was instrumental in helping us develop this technology,” she said. “We took something that you can do in microelectronics and the semiconductor industry and brought it to the pharmaceutical industry.”While Jaklenec applied insight from electronics to her work in health care, Giovanni Traverso, the Karl Van Tassel Career Development Professor of Mechanical Engineering, who is also a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, found inspiration in nature, studying the cephalopod squid and remora fish to design ingestible drug delivery systems. Representing the industry side of life sciences, Mirai Bio senior vice president Jagesh Shah SM ’95, PhD ’99 presented his company’s precision-targeted lipid nanoparticles for therapeutic delivery. Shah, as well as the other speakers, emphasized the importance of collaboration between industry and academia to make meaningful impact, and the need to strengthen the pipeline for young scientists.Manufacturing, from the classroom to the workforcePaving the way for future generations was similarly emphasized in the second session, which highlighted MIT’s Initiative for New Manufacturing (MIT INM). “MIT’s dedication to manufacturing is not only about technology research and education, it’s also about understanding the landscape of manufacturing, domestically and globally,” said INM co-director A. John Hart, the Class of 1922 Professor and head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “It’s about getting people — our graduates who are budding enthusiasts of manufacturing — out of campus and starting and scaling new companies,” he said.On progressing from lab to market, Dan Oran PhD ’21 shared his career trajectory from technician to PhD student to founding his own company, Irradiant Technologies. “How are companies like Dan’s making the move from the lab to prototype to pilot production to demonstration to commercialization?” asked the next speaker, Elisabeth Reynolds, professor of the practice in urban studies and planning at MIT. “The U.S. capital market has not historically been well organized for that kind of support.” She emphasized the challenge of scaling innovations from prototype to production, and the need for workforce development.“Attracting and retaining workforce is a major pain point for manufacturing businesses,” agreed John Liu, principal research scientist in mechanical engineering at MIT. To keep new ideas flowing from the classroom to the factory floor, Liu proposes a new worker type in advanced manufacturing — the technologist — someone who can be a bridge to connect the technicians and the engineers.Bridging ecosystems with nanoscienceBridging people, disciplines, and markets to affect meaningful change was also emphasized by Benedetto Marelli, mission director for the MIT Climate Project and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT.“If we’re going to have a tangible impact on the trajectory of climate change in the next 10 years, we cannot do it alone,” he said. “We need to take care of ecology, health, mobility, the built environment, food, energy, policies, and trade and industry — and think about these as interconnected topics.”Faculty speakers in this session offered a glimpse of nanoscale solutions for climate resiliency. Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering, presented his group’s work on using nanoparticles to turn waste methane and urea into renewable materials. Desirée Plata, the School of Engineering Distinguished Climate and Energy Professor, spoke about scaling carbon dioxide removal systems. Mechanical engineering professor Kripa Varanasi highlighted, among other projects, his lab’s work on improving agricultural spraying so pesticides adhere to crops, reducing agricultural pollution and cost.In all of these presentations, the MIT faculty highlighted the tie between climate and the economy. “The economic systems that we have today are depleting to our resources, inherently polluting,” emphasized Plata. “The goal here is to use sustainable design to transition the global economy.”What do people do at MIT.nano?This is where MIT.nano comes in, offering shared access facilities where researchers can design creative solutions to these global challenges. “What do people do at MIT.nano?” asked associate director for Fab.nano Jorg Scholvin ’00, MNG ’01, PhD ’06 in the session on MIT.nano’s ecosystem. With 1,500 individuals and over 20 percent of MIT faculty labs using MIT.nano, it’s a difficult question to quickly answer. However, in a rapid-fire research showcase, students and postdocs gave a response that spanned 3D transistors and quantum devices to solar solutions and art restoration. Their work reflects the challenges and opportunities shared at the Nano Summit: developing technologies ready to scale, uniting disciplines to tackle complex problems, and gaining hands-on experience that prepares them to contribute to the future of hard tech.The researchers’ enthusiasm carried the excitement and curiosity that President Kornbluth mentioned in her opening remarks, and that many faculty emphasized throughout the day. “The solutions to the problems we heard about today may come from inventions that don’t exist yet,” said Strano. “These are some of the most creative people, here at MIT. I think we inspire each other.”Robert N. Noyce (1953) Cleanroom at MIT.nanoCollaborative inspiration is not new to the MIT culture. The Nano Summit sessions focused on where we are today, and where we might be going in the future, but also reflected on how we arrived at this moment. Honoring visionaries of nanoscience and nanotechnology, President Emeritus L. Rafael Reif delivered the closing remarks and an exciting announcement — the dedication of the MIT.nano cleanroom complex. Made possible through a gift by Ray Stata SB ’57, SM ’58, this research space, 45,000 square feet of ISO 5, 6, and 7 cleanrooms, will be named the Robert N. Noyce (1953) Cleanroom.“Ray Stata was — and is — the driving force behind nanoscale research at MIT,” said Reif. “I want to thank Ray, whose generosity has allowed MIT to honor Robert Noyce in such a fitting way.”Ray Stata co-founded Analog Devices in 1965, and Noyce co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957, and later Intel in 1968. Noyce, widely regarded as the “Mayor of Silicon Valley,” became chair of the Semiconductor Industry Association in 1977, and over the next 40 years, semiconductor technology advanced a thousandfold, from micrometers to nanometers.“Noyce was a pioneer of the semiconductor industry,” said Stata. “It is due to his leadership and remarkable contributions that electronics technology is where it is today. It is an honor to be able to name the MIT.nano cleanroom after Bob Noyce, creating a permanent tribute to his vision and accomplishments in the heart of the MIT campus.”To conclude his remarks and the 2025 Nano Summit, Reif brought the nano journey back to today, highlighting technology giants such as Lisa Su ’90, SM ’91, PhD ’94, for whom Building 12, the home of MIT.nano, is named. “MIT has educated a large number of remarkable leaders in the semiconductor space,” said Reif. “Now, with the Robert Noyce Cleanroom, this amazing MIT community is ready to continue to shape the future with the next generation of nano discoveries — and the next generation of nano leaders, who will become living legends in their own time.” More

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      MIT senior turns waste from the fishing industry into biodegradable plastic

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      Sometimes the answers to seemingly intractable environmental problems are found in nature itself. Take the growing challenge of plastic waste. Jacqueline Prawira, an MIT senior in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), has developed biodegradable, plastic-like materials from fish offal, as featured in a recent segment on the CBS show “The Visioneers with Zay Harding.” “We basically made plastics to be too good at their job. That also means the environment doesn’t know what to do with this, because they simply won’t degrade,” Prawira told Harding. “And now we’re literally drowning in plastic. By 2050, plastics are expected to outweigh fish in the ocean.” “The Visioneers” regularly highlights environmental innovators. The episode featuring Prawira premiered during a special screening at Climate Week NYC on Sept. 24.Her inspiration came from the Asian fish market her family visits. Once the fish they buy are butchered, the scales are typically discarded. “But I also started noticing they’re actually fairly strong. They’re thin, somewhat flexible, and pretty lightweight, too, for their strength,” Prawira says. “And that got me thinking: Well, what other material has these properties? Plastics.” She transformed this waste product into a transparent, thin-film material that can be used for disposable products such as grocery bags, packaging, and utensils. Both her fish-scale material and a composite she developed don’t just mimic plastic — they address one of its biggest flaws. “If you put them in composting environments, [they] will degrade on their own naturally without needing much, if any, external help,” Prawira says. This isn’t Prawira’s first environmental innovation. Working in DMSE Professor Yet-Ming Chiang’s lab, she helped develop a low-carbon process for making cement — the world’s most widely used construction material, and a major emitter of carbon dioxide. The process, called silicate subtraction, enables compounds to form at lower temperatures, cutting fossil fuel use. Prawira and her co-inventors in the Chiang lab are also using the method to extract valuable lithium with zero waste. The process is patented and is being commercialized through the startup Rock Zero. For her achievements, Prawira recently received the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, awarded to undergraduates pursuing careers in science, mathematics, or engineering. In her “Visioneers” interview, she shared her hope for more sustainable ways of living. “I’m hoping that we can have daily lives that can be more in sync with the environment,” Prawira said. “So you don’t always have to choose between the convenience of daily life and having to help protect the environment.” More

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      A beacon of light

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      Placing a lit candle in a window to welcome friends and strangers is an old Irish tradition that took on greater significance when Mary Robinson was elected president of Ireland in 1990. At the time, Robinson placed a lamp in Áras an Uachtaráin — the official residence of Ireland’s presidents — noting that the Irish diaspora and all others are always welcome in Ireland. Decades later, a lit lamp remains in a window in Áras an Uachtaráin.The symbolism of Robinson’s lamp was shared by Hashim Sarkis, dean of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P), at the school’s graduation ceremony in May, where Robinson addressed the class of 2025. To replicate the generous intentions of Robinson’s lamp and commemorate her visit to MIT, Sarkis commissioned a unique lantern as a gift for Robinson. He commissioned an identical one for his office, which is in the front portico of MIT at 77 Massachusetts Ave.“The lamp will welcome all citizens of the world to MIT,” says Sarkis.

      Geolectric: Sustainable, Low-Carbon Ceramics for Embedded Electronics and Interaction DesignVideo: MIT Design Intelligence Lab

      No ordinary lanternThe bespoke lantern was created by Marcelo Coelho SM ’08, PhD ’12, director of the Design Intelligence Lab and associate professor of the practice in the Department of Architecture.One of several projects in the Geoletric research at the Design Intelligence Lab, the lantern showcases the use of geopolymers as a sustainable material alternative for embedded computers and consumer electronics.“The materials that we use to make computers have a negative impact on climate, so we’re rethinking how we make products with embedded electronics — such as a lamp or lantern — from a climate perspective,” says Coelho.Consumer electronics rely on materials that are high in carbon emissions and difficult to recycle. As the demand for embedded computing increases, so too does the need for alternative materials that have a reduced environmental impact while supporting electronic functionality.The Geolectric lantern advances the formulation and application of geopolymers — a class of inorganic materials that form covalently bonded, non-crystalline networks. Unlike traditional ceramics, geopolymers do not require high-temperature firing, allowing electronic components to be embedded seamlessly during production.Geopolymers are similar to ceramics, but have a lower carbon footprint and present a sustainable alternative for consumer electronics, product design, and architecture. The minerals Coelho uses to make the geopolymers — aluminum silicate and sodium silicate — are those regularly used to make ceramics.“Geopolymers aren’t particularly new, but are becoming more popular,” says Coelho. “They have high strength in both tension and compression, superior durability, fire resistance, and thermal insulation. Compared to concrete, geopolymers don’t release carbon dioxide. Compared to ceramics, you don’t have to worry about firing them. What’s even more interesting is that they can be made from industrial byproducts and waste materials, contributing to a circular economy and reducing waste.”The lantern is embedded with custom electronics that serve as a proximity and touch sensor. When a hand is placed over the top, light shines down the glass tubes.The timeless design of the Geoelectric lantern — minimalist, composed of natural materials — belies its future-forward function. Coelho’s academic background is in fine arts and computer science. Much of his work, he says, “bridges these two worlds.”Working at the Design Intelligence Lab with Coelho on the lanterns are Jacob Payne, a graduate architecture student, and Jean-Baptiste Labrune, a research affiliate.A light for MITA few weeks before commencement, Sarkis saw the Geoelectric lantern in Palazzo Diedo Berggruen Arts and Culture in Venice, Italy. The exhibition, a collateral event of the Venice Biennale’s 19th International Architecture Exhibition, featured the work of 40 MIT architecture faculty.The sustainability feature of Geolectric is the key reason Sarkis regarded the lantern as the perfect gift for Robinson. After her career in politics, Robinson founded the Mary Robinson Foundation — Climate Justice, an international center addressing the impacts of climate change on marginalized communities.The third iteration of Geolectric for Sarkis’ office is currently underway. While the lantern was a technical prototype and an opportunity to showcase his lab’s research, Coelho — an immigrant from Brazil — was profoundly touched by how Sarkis created the perfect symbolism to both embody the welcoming spirit of the school and honor President Robinson.“When the world feels most fragile, we need to urgently find sustainable and resilient solutions for our built environment. It’s in the darkest times when we need light the most,” says Coelho.  More

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      AI system learns from many types of scientific information and runs experiments to discover new materials

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      Machine-learning models can speed up the discovery of new materials by making predictions and suggesting experiments. But most models today only consider a few specific types of data or variables. Compare that with human scientists, who work in a collaborative environment and consider experimental results, the broader scientific literature, imaging and structural analysis, personal experience or intuition, and input from colleagues and peer reviewers.Now, MIT researchers have developed a method for optimizing materials recipes and planning experiments that incorporates information from diverse sources like insights from the literature, chemical compositions, microstructural images, and more. The approach is part of a new platform, named Copilot for Real-world Experimental Scientists (CRESt), that also uses robotic equipment for high-throughput materials testing, the results of which are fed back into large multimodal models to further optimize materials recipes.Human researchers can converse with the system in natural language, with no coding required, and the system makes its own observations and hypotheses along the way. Cameras and visual language models also allow the system to monitor experiments, detect issues, and suggest corrections.“In the field of AI for science, the key is designing new experiments,” says Ju Li, School of Engineering Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering. “We use multimodal feedback — for example information from previous literature on how palladium behaved in fuel cells at this temperature, and human feedback — to complement experimental data and design new experiments. We also use robots to synthesize and characterize the material’s structure and to test performance.”The system is described in a paper published in Nature. The researchers used CRESt to explore more than 900 chemistries and conduct 3,500 electrochemical tests, leading to the discovery of a catalyst material that delivered record power density in a fuel cell that runs on formate salt to produce electricity.Joining Li on the paper as first authors are PhD student Zhen Zhang, Zhichu Ren PhD ’24, PhD student Chia-Wei Hsu, and postdoc Weibin Chen. Their coauthors are MIT Assistant Professor Iwnetim Abate; Associate Professor Pulkit Agrawal; JR East Professor of Engineering Yang Shao-Horn; MIT.nano researcher Aubrey Penn; Zhang-Wei Hong PhD ’25, Hongbin Xu PhD ’25; Daniel Zheng PhD ’25; MIT graduate students Shuhan Miao and Hugh Smith; MIT postdocs Yimeng Huang, Weiyin Chen, Yungsheng Tian, Yifan Gao, and Yaoshen Niu; former MIT postdoc Sipei Li; and collaborators including Chi-Feng Lee, Yu-Cheng Shao, Hsiao-Tsu Wang, and Ying-Rui Lu.

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      A smarter systemMaterials science experiments can be time-consuming and expensive. They require researchers to carefully design workflows, make new material, and run a series of tests and analysis to understand what happened. Those results are then used to decide how to improve the material.To improve the process, some researchers have turned to a machine-learning strategy known as active learning to make efficient use of previous experimental data points and explore or exploit those data. When paired with a statistical technique known as Bayesian optimization (BO), active learning has helped researchers identify new materials for things like batteries and advanced semiconductors.“Bayesian optimization is like Netflix recommending the next movie to watch based on your viewing history, except instead it recommends the next experiment to do,” Li explains. “But basic Bayesian optimization is too simplistic. It uses a boxed-in design space, so if I say I’m going to use platinum, palladium, and iron, it only changes the ratio of those elements in this small space. But real materials have a lot more dependencies, and BO often gets lost.”Most active learning approaches also rely on single data streams that don’t capture everything that goes on in an experiment. To equip computational systems with more human-like knowledge, while still taking advantage of the speed and control of automated systems, Li and his collaborators built CRESt.CRESt’s robotic equipment includes a liquid-handling robot, a carbothermal shock system to rapidly synthesize materials, an automated electrochemical workstation for testing, characterization equipment including automated electron microscopy and optical microscopy, and auxiliary devices such as pumps and gas valves, which can also be remotely controlled.  Many processing parameters can also be tuned.With the user interface, researchers can chat with CRESt and tell it to use active learning to find promising materials recipes for different projects. CRESt can include up to 20 precursor molecules and substrates into its recipe. To guide material designs, CRESt’s models search through scientific papers for descriptions of elements or precursor molecules that might be useful. When human researchers tell CRESt to pursue new recipes, it kicks off a robotic symphony of sample preparation, characterization, and testing. The researcher can also ask CRESt to perform image analysis from scanning electron microscopy imaging, X-ray diffraction, and other sources.Information from those processes is used to train the active learning models, which use both literature knowledge and current experimental results to suggest further experiments and accelerate materials discovery.“For each recipe we use previous literature text or databases, and it creates these huge representations of every recipe based on the previous knowledge base before even doing the experiment,” says Li. “We perform principal component analysis in this knowledge embedding space to get a reduced search space that captures most of the performance variability. Then we use Bayesian optimization in this reduced space to design the new experiment. After the new experiment, we feed newly acquired multimodal experimental data and human feedback into a large language model to augment the knowledgebase and redefine the reduced search space, which gives us a big boost in active learning efficiency.”Materials science experiments can also face reproducibility challenges. To address the problem, CRESt monitors its experiments with cameras, looking for potential problems and suggesting solutions via text and voice to human researchers.The researchers used CRESt to develop an electrode material for an advanced type of high-density fuel cell known as a direct formate fuel cell. After exploring more than 900 chemistries over three months, CRESt discovered a catalyst material made from eight elements that achieved a 9.3-fold improvement in power density per dollar over pure palladium, an expensive precious metal. In further tests, CRESTs material was used to deliver a record power density to a working direct formate fuel cell even though the cell contained just one-fourth of the precious metals of previous devices.The results show the potential for CRESt to find solutions to real-world energy problems that have plagued the materials science and engineering community for decades.“A significant challenge for fuel-cell catalysts is the use of precious metal,” says Zhang. “For fuel cells, researchers have used various precious metals like palladium and platinum. We used a multielement catalyst that also incorporates many other cheap elements to create the optimal coordination environment for catalytic activity and resistance to poisoning species such as carbon monoxide and adsorbed hydrogen atom. People have been searching low-cost options for many years. This system greatly accelerated our search for these catalysts.”A helpful assistantEarly on, poor reproducibility emerged as a major problem that limited the researchers’ ability to perform their new active learning technique on experimental datasets. Material properties can be influenced by the way the precursors are mixed and processed, and any number of problems can subtly alter experimental conditions, requiring careful inspection to correct.To partially automate the process, the researchers coupled computer vision and vision language models with domain knowledge from the scientific literature, which allowed the system to hypothesize sources of irreproducibility and propose solutions. For example, the models can notice when there’s a millimeter-sized deviation in a sample’s shape or when a pipette moves something out of place. The researchers incorporated some of the model’s suggestions, leading to improved consistency, suggesting the models already make good experimental assistants.The researchers noted that humans still performed most of the debugging in their experiments.“CREST is an assistant, not a replacement, for human researchers,” Li says. “Human researchers are still indispensable. In fact, we use natural language so the system can explain what it is doing and present observations and hypotheses. But this is a step toward more flexible, self-driving labs.” More

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      MIT engineers develop a magnetic transistor for more energy-efficient electronics

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      Transistors, the building blocks of modern electronics, are typically made of silicon. Because it’s a semiconductor, this material can control the flow of electricity in a circuit. But silicon has fundamental physical limits that restrict how compact and energy-efficient a transistor can be.MIT researchers have now replaced silicon with a magnetic semiconductor, creating a magnetic transistor that could enable smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient circuits. The material’s magnetism strongly influences its electronic behavior, leading to more efficient control of the flow of electricity. The team used a novel magnetic material and an optimization process that reduces the material’s defects, which boosts the transistor’s performance.The material’s unique magnetic properties also allow for transistors with built-in memory, which would simplify circuit design and unlock new applications for high-performance electronics.“People have known about magnets for thousands of years, but there are very limited ways to incorporate magnetism into electronics. We have shown a new way to efficiently utilize magnetism that opens up a lot of possibilities for future applications and research,” says Chung-Tao Chou, an MIT graduate student in the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Physics, and co-lead author of a paper on this advance.Chou is joined on the paper by co-lead author Eugene Park, a graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE); Julian Klein, a DMSE research scientist; Josep Ingla-Aynes, a postdoc in the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center; Jagadeesh S. Moodera, a senior research scientist in the Department of Physics; and senior authors Frances Ross, TDK Professor in DMSE; and Luqiao Liu, an associate professor in EECS, and a member of the Research Laboratory of Electronics; as well as others at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague. The paper appears today in Physical Review Letters.Overcoming the limitsIn an electronic device, silicon semiconductor transistors act like tiny light switches that turn a circuit on and off, or amplify weak signals in a communication system. They do this using a small input voltage.But a fundamental physical limit of silicon semiconductors prevents a transistor from operating below a certain voltage, which hinders its energy efficiency.To make more efficient electronics, researchers have spent decades working toward magnetic transistors that utilize electron spin to control the flow of electricity. Electron spin is a fundamental property that enables electrons to behave like tiny magnets.So far, scientists have mostly been limited to using certain magnetic materials. These lack the favorable electronic properties of semiconductors, constraining device performance.“In this work, we combine magnetism and semiconductor physics to realize useful spintronic devices,” Liu says.The researchers replace the silicon in the surface layer of a transistor with chromium sulfur bromide, a two-dimensional material that acts as a magnetic semiconductor.Due to the material’s structure, researchers can switch between two magnetic states very cleanly. This makes it ideal for use in a transistor that smoothly switches between “on” and “off.”“One of the biggest challenges we faced was finding the right material. We tried many other materials that didn’t work,” Chou says.They discovered that changing these magnetic states modifies the material’s electronic properties, enabling low-energy operation. And unlike many other 2D materials, chromium sulfur bromide remains stable in air.To make a transistor, the researchers pattern electrodes onto a silicon substrate, then carefully align and transfer the 2D material on top. They use tape to pick up a tiny piece of material, only a few tens of nanometers thick, and place it onto the substrate.“A lot of researchers will use solvents or glue to do the transfer, but transistors require a very clean surface. We eliminate all those risks by simplifying this step,” Chou says.Leveraging magnetismThis lack of contamination enables their device to outperform existing magnetic transistors. Most others can only create a weak magnetic effect, changing the flow of current by a few percent or less. Their new transistor can switch or amplify the electric current by a factor of 10.They use an external magnetic field to change the magnetic state of the material, switching the transistor using significantly less energy than would usually be required.The material also allows them to control the magnetic states with electric current. This is important because engineers cannot apply magnetic fields to individual transistors in an electronic device. They need to control each one electrically.The material’s magnetic properties could also enable transistors with built-in memory, simplifying the design of logic or memory circuits.A typical memory device has a magnetic cell to store information and a transistor to read it out. Their method can combine both into one magnetic transistor.“Now, not only are transistors turning on and off, they are also remembering information. And because we can switch the transistor with greater magnitude, the signal is much stronger so we can read out the information faster, and in a much more reliable way,” Liu says.Building on this demonstration, the researchers plan to further study the use of electrical current to control the device. They are also working to make their method scalable so they can fabricate arrays of transistors.This research was supported, in part, by the Semiconductor Research Corporation, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Army Research Office, and the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports. The work was partially carried out at the MIT.nano facilities. More

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      New tool makes generative AI models more likely to create breakthrough materials

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      The artificial intelligence models that turn text into images are also useful for generating new materials. Over the last few years, generative materials models from companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta have drawn on their training data to help researchers design tens of millions of new materials.But when it comes to designing materials with exotic quantum properties like superconductivity or unique magnetic states, those models struggle. That’s too bad, because humans could use the help. For example, after a decade of research into a class of materials that could revolutionize quantum computing, called quantum spin liquids, only a dozen material candidates have been identified. The bottleneck means there are fewer materials to serve as the basis for technological breakthroughs.Now, MIT researchers have developed a technique that lets popular generative materials models create promising quantum materials by following specific design rules. The rules, or constraints, steer models to create materials with unique structures that give rise to quantum properties.“The models from these large companies generate materials optimized for stability,” says Mingda Li, MIT’s Class of 1947 Career Development Professor. “Our perspective is that’s not usually how materials science advances. We don’t need 10 million new materials to change the world. We just need one really good material.”The approach is described today in a paper published by Nature Materials. The researchers applied their technique to generate millions of candidate materials consisting of geometric lattice structures associated with quantum properties. From that pool, they synthesized two actual materials with exotic magnetic traits.“People in the quantum community really care about these geometric constraints, like the Kagome lattices that are two overlapping, upside-down triangles. We created materials with Kagome lattices because those materials can mimic the behavior of rare earth elements, so they are of high technical importance.” Li says.Li is the senior author of the paper. His MIT co-authors include PhD students Ryotaro Okabe, Mouyang Cheng, Abhijatmedhi Chotrattanapituk, and Denisse Cordova Carrizales; postdoc Manasi Mandal; undergraduate researchers Kiran Mak and Bowen Yu; visiting scholar Nguyen Tuan Hung; Xiang Fu ’22, PhD ’24; and professor of electrical engineering and computer science Tommi Jaakkola, who is an affiliate of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. Additional co-authors include Yao Wang of Emory University, Weiwei Xie of Michigan State University, YQ Cheng of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Robert Cava of Princeton University.Steering models toward impactA material’s properties are determined by its structure, and quantum materials are no different. Certain atomic structures are more likely to give rise to exotic quantum properties than others. For instance, square lattices can serve as a platform for high-temperature superconductors, while other shapes known as Kagome and Lieb lattices can support the creation of materials that could be useful for quantum computing.To help a popular class of generative models known as a diffusion models produce materials that conform to particular geometric patterns, the researchers created SCIGEN (short for Structural Constraint Integration in GENerative model). SCIGEN is a computer code that ensures diffusion models adhere to user-defined constraints at each iterative generation step. With SCIGEN, users can give any generative AI diffusion model geometric structural rules to follow as it generates materials.AI diffusion models work by sampling from their training dataset to generate structures that reflect the distribution of structures found in the dataset. SCIGEN blocks generations that don’t align with the structural rules.To test SCIGEN, the researchers applied it to a popular AI materials generation model known as DiffCSP. They had the SCIGEN-equipped model generate materials with unique geometric patterns known as Archimedean lattices, which are collections of 2D lattice tilings of different polygons. Archimedean lattices can lead to a range of quantum phenomena and have been the focus of much research.“Archimedean lattices give rise to quantum spin liquids and so-called flat bands, which can mimic the properties of rare earths without rare earth elements, so they are extremely important,” says Cheng, a co-corresponding author of the work. “Other Archimedean lattice materials have large pores that could be used for carbon capture and other applications, so it’s a collection of special materials. In some cases, there are no known materials with that lattice, so I think it will be really interesting to find the first material that fits in that lattice.”The model generated over 10 million material candidates with Archimedean lattices. One million of those materials survived a screening for stability. Using the supercomputers in Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the researchers then took a smaller sample of 26,000 materials and ran detailed simulations to understand how the materials’ underlying atoms behaved. The researchers found magnetism in 41 percent of those structures.From that subset, the researchers synthesized two previously undiscovered compounds, TiPdBi and TiPbSb, at Xie and Cava’s labs. Subsequent experiments showed the AI model’s predictions largely aligned with the actual material’s properties.“We wanted to discover new materials that could have a huge potential impact by incorporating these structures that have been known to give rise to quantum properties,” says Okabe, the paper’s first author. “We already know that these materials with specific geometric patterns are interesting, so it’s natural to start with them.”Accelerating material breakthroughsQuantum spin liquids could unlock quantum computing by enabling stable, error-resistant qubits that serve as the basis of quantum operations. But no quantum spin liquid materials have been confirmed. Xie and Cava believe SCIGEN could accelerate the search for these materials.“There’s a big search for quantum computer materials and topological superconductors, and these are all related to the geometric patterns of materials,” Xie says. “But experimental progress has been very, very slow,” Cava adds. “Many of these quantum spin liquid materials are subject to constraints: They have to be in a triangular lattice or a Kagome lattice. If the materials satisfy those constraints, the quantum researchers get excited; it’s a necessary but not sufficient condition. So, by generating many, many materials like that, it immediately gives experimentalists hundreds or thousands more candidates to play with to accelerate quantum computer materials research.”“This work presents a new tool, leveraging machine learning, that can predict which materials will have specific elements in a desired geometric pattern,” says Drexel University Professor Steve May, who was not involved in the research. “This should speed up the development of previously unexplored materials for applications in next-generation electronic, magnetic, or optical technologies.”The researchers stress that experimentation is still critical to assess whether AI-generated materials can be synthesized and how their actual properties compare with model predictions. Future work on SCIGEN could incorporate additional design rules into generative models, including chemical and functional constraints.“People who want to change the world care about material properties more than the stability and structure of materials,” Okabe says. “With our approach, the ratio of stable materials goes down, but it opens the door to generate a whole bunch of promising materials.”The work was supported, in part, by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, the National Science Foundation, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. More

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      New self-assembling material could be the key to recyclable EV batteries

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      Today’s electric vehicle boom is tomorrow’s mountain of electronic waste. And while myriad efforts are underway to improve battery recycling, many EV batteries still end up in landfills.A research team from MIT wants to help change that with a new kind of self-assembling battery material that quickly breaks apart when submerged in a simple organic liquid. In a new paper published in Nature Chemistry, the researchers showed the material can work as the electrolyte in a functioning, solid-state battery cell and then revert back to its original molecular components in minutes.The approach offers an alternative to shredding the battery into a mixed, hard-to-recycle mass. Instead, because the electrolyte serves as the battery’s connecting layer, when the new material returns to its original molecular form, the entire battery disassembles to accelerate the recycling process.“So far in the battery industry, we’ve focused on high-performing materials and designs, and only later tried to figure out how to recycle batteries made with complex structures and hard-to-recycle materials,” says the paper’s first author Yukio Cho PhD ’23. “Our approach is to start with easily recyclable materials and figure out how to make them battery-compatible. Designing batteries for recyclability from the beginning is a new approach.”Joining Cho on the paper are PhD candidate Cole Fincher, Ty Christoff-Tempesta PhD ’22, Kyocera Professor of Ceramics Yet-Ming Chiang, Visiting Associate Professor Julia Ortony, Xiaobing Zuo, and Guillaume Lamour.Better batteriesThere’s a scene in one of the “Harry Potter” films where Professor Dumbledore cleans a dilapidated home with the flick of the wrist and a spell. Cho says that image stuck with him as a kid. (What better way to clean your room?) When he saw a talk by Ortony on engineering molecules so that they could assemble into complex structures and then revert back to their original form, he wondered if it could be used to make battery recycling work like magic.That would be a paradigm shift for the battery industry. Today, batteries require harsh chemicals, high heat, and complex processing to recycle. There are three main parts of a battery: the positively charged cathode, the negatively charged electrode, and the electrolyte that shuttles lithium ions between them. The electrolytes in most lithium-ion batteries are highly flammable and degrade over time into toxic byproducts that require specialized handling.To simplify the recycling process, the researchers decided to make a more sustainable electrolyte. For that, they turned to a class of molecules that self-assemble in water, named aramid amphiphiles (AAs), whose chemical structures and stability mimic that of Kevlar. The researchers further designed the AAs to contain polyethylene glycol (PEG), which can conduct lithium ions, on one end of each molecule. When the molecules are exposed to water, they spontaneously form nanoribbons with ion-conducting PEG surfaces and bases that imitate the robustness of Kevlar through tight hydrogen bonding. The result is a mechanically stable nanoribbon structure that conducts ions across its surface.“The material is composed of two parts,” Cho explains. “The first part is this flexible chain that gives us a nest, or host, for lithium ions to jump around. The second part is this strong organic material component that is used in the Kevlar, which is a bulletproof material. Those make the whole structure stable.”When added to water, the nanoribbons self-assemble to form millions of nanoribbons that can be hot-pressed into a solid-state material.“Within five minutes of being added to water, the solution becomes gel-like, indicating there are so many nanofibers formed in the liquid that they start to entangle each other,” Cho says. “What’s exciting is we can make this material at scale because of the self-assembly behavior.”The team tested the material’s strength and toughness, finding it could endure the stresses associated with making and running the battery. They also constructed a solid-state battery cell that used lithium iron phosphate for the cathode and lithium titanium oxide as the anode, both common materials in today’s batteries. The nanoribbons moved lithium ions successfully between the electrodes, but a side-effect known as polarization limited the movement of lithium ions into the battery’s electrodes during fast bouts of charging and discharging, hampering its performance compared to today’s gold-standard commercial batteries.“The lithium ions moved along the nanofiber all right, but getting the lithium ion from the nanofibers to the metal oxide seems to be the most sluggish point of the process,” Cho says.When they immersed the battery cell into organic solvents, the material immediately dissolved, with each part of the battery falling away for easier recycling. Cho compared the materials’ reaction to cotton candy being submerged in water.“The electrolyte holds the two battery electrodes together and provides the lithium-ion pathways,” Cho says. “So, when you want to recycle the battery, the entire electrolyte layer can fall off naturally and you can recycle the electrodes separately.”Validating a new approachCho says the material is a proof of concept that demonstrates the recycle-first approach.“We don’t want to say we solved all the problems with this material,” Cho says. “Our battery performance was not fantastic because we used only this material as the entire electrolyte for the paper, but what we’re picturing is using this material as one layer in the battery electrolyte. It doesn’t have to be the entire electrolyte to kick off the recycling process.”Cho also sees a lot of room for optimizing the material’s performance with further experiments.Now, the researchers are exploring ways to integrate these kinds of materials into existing battery designs as well as implementing the ideas into new battery chemistries.“It’s very challenging to convince existing vendors to do something very differently,” Cho says. “But with new battery materials that may come out in five or 10 years, it could be easier to integrate this into new designs in the beginning.”Cho also believes the approach could help reshore lithium supplies by reusing materials from batteries that are already in the U.S.“People are starting to realize how important this is,” Cho says. “If we can start to recycle lithium-ion batteries from battery waste at scale, it’ll have the same effect as opening lithium mines in the U.S. Also, each battery requires a certain amount of lithium, so extrapolating out the growth of electric vehicles, we need to reuse this material to avoid massive lithium price spikes.”The work was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. 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