School of Engineering

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Energy

      New MIT.nano equipment to accelerate innovation in “tough tech” sectors

      by

      A new set of advanced nanofabrication equipment will make MIT.nano one of the world’s most advanced research facilities in microelectronics and related technologies, unlocking new opportunities for experimentation and widening the path for promising inventions to become impactful new products.

      The equipment, provided by Applied Materials, will significantly expand MIT.nano’s nanofabrication capabilities, making them compatible with wafers — thin, round slices of semiconductor material — up to 200 millimeters, or 8 inches, in diameter, a size widely used in industry. The new tools will allow researchers to prototype a vast array of new microelectronic devices using state-of-the-art materials and fabrication processes. At the same time, the 200-millimeter compatibility will support close collaboration with industry and enable innovations to be rapidly adopted by companies and mass produced.

      MIT.nano’s leaders say the equipment, which will also be available to scientists outside of MIT, will dramatically enhance their facility’s capabilities, allowing experts in the region to more efficiently explore new approaches in “tough tech” sectors, including advanced electronics, next-generation batteries, renewable energies, optical computing, biological sensing, and a host of other areas — many likely yet to be imagined.

      “The toolsets will provide an accelerative boost to our ability to launch new technologies that can then be given to the world at scale,” says MIT.nano Director Vladimir Bulović, who is also the Fariborz Maseeh Professor of Emerging Technology. “MIT.nano is committed to its expansive mission — to build a better world. We provide toolsets and capabilities that, in the hands of brilliant researchers, can effectively move the world forward.”

      The announcement comes as part of an agreement between MIT and Applied Materials, Inc. that, together with a grant to MIT from the Northeast Microelectronics Coalition (NEMC) Hub, commits more than $40 million of estimated private and public investment to add advanced nano-fabrication equipment and capabilities at MIT.nano.

      “We don’t believe there is another space in the United States that will offer the same kind of versatility, capability, and accessibility, with 8-inch toolsets integrated right next to more fundamental toolsets for research discoveries,” Bulović says. “It will create a seamless path to accelerate the pace of innovation.”

      Pushing the boundaries of innovation

      Applied Materials is the world’s largest supplier of equipment for manufacturing semiconductors, displays, and other advanced electronics. The company will provide at MIT.nano several state-of-the-art process tools capable of supporting 150- and 200-millimeter wafers and will enhance and upgrade an existing tool owned by MIT. In addition to assisting MIT.nano in the day-to-day operation and maintenance of the equipment, Applied Materials engineers will develop new process capabilities to benefit researchers and students from MIT and beyond.

      “This investment will significantly accelerate the pace of innovation and discovery in microelectronics and microsystems,” says Tomás Palacios, director of MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories and the Clarence J. Lebel Professor in Electrical Engineering. “It’s wonderful news for our community, wonderful news for the state, and, in my view, a tremendous step forward toward implementing the national vision for the future of innovation in microelectronics.”

      Nanoscale research at universities is traditionally conducted on machines that are less compatible with industry, which makes academic innovations more difficult to turn into impactful, mass-produced products. Jorg Scholvin, associate director for MIT.nano’s shared fabrication facility, says the new machines, when combined with MIT.nano’s existing equipment, represent a step-change improvement in that area: Researchers will be able to take an industry-standard wafer and build their technology on top of it to prove to companies it works on existing devices, or to co-fabricate new ideas in close collaboration with industry partners.

      “In the journey from an idea to a fully working device, the ability to begin on a small scale, figure out what you want to do, rapidly debug your designs, and then scale it up to an industry-scale wafer is critical,” Scholvin says. “It means a student can test out their idea on wafer-scale quickly and directly incorporate insights into their project so that their processes are scalable. Providing such proof-of-principle early on will accelerate the idea out of the academic environment, potentially reducing years of added effort. Other tools at MIT.nano can supplement work on the 200-millimeter wafer scale, but the higher throughput and higher precision of the Applied equipment will provide researchers with repeatability and accuracy that is unprecedented for academic research environments. Essentially what you have is a sharper, faster, more precise tool to do your work.”

      Scholvin predicts the equipment will lead to exponential growth in research opportunities.

      “I think a key benefit of these tools is they allow us to push the boundary of research in a variety of different ways that we can predict today,” Scholvin says. “But then there are also unpredictable benefits, which are hiding in the shadows waiting to be discovered by the creativity of the researchers at MIT. With each new application, more ideas and paths usually come to mind — so that over time, more and more opportunities are discovered.”

      Because the equipment is available for use by people outside of the MIT community, including regional researchers, industry partners, nonprofit organizations, and local startups, they will also enable new collaborations.

      “The tools themselves will be an incredible meeting place — a place that can, I think, transpose the best of our ideas in a much more effective way than before,” Bulović says. “I’m extremely excited about that.”

      Palacios notes that while microelectronics is best known for work making transistors smaller to fit on microprocessors, it’s a vast field that enables virtually all the technology around us, from wireless communications and high-speed internet to energy management, personalized health care, and more.

      He says he’s personally excited to use the new machines to do research around power electronics and semiconductors, including exploring promising new materials like gallium nitride, which could dramatically improve the efficiency of electronic devices.

      Fulfilling a mission

      MIT.nano’s leaders say a key driver of commercialization will be startups, both from MIT and beyond.

      “This is not only going to help the MIT research community innovate faster, it’s also going to enable a new wave of entrepreneurship,” Palacios says. “We’re reducing the barriers for students, faculty, and other entrepreneurs to be able to take innovation and get it to market. That fits nicely with MIT’s mission of making the world a better place through technology. I cannot wait to see the amazing new inventions that our colleagues and students will come out with.”

      Bulović says the announcement aligns with the mission laid out by MIT’s leaders at MIT.nano’s inception.

      “We have the space in MIT.nano to accommodate these tools, we have the capabilities inside MIT.nano to manage their operation, and as a shared and open facility, we have methodologies by which we can welcome anyone from the region to use the tools,” Bulović says. “That is the vision MIT laid out as we were designing MIT.nano, and this announcement helps to fulfill that vision.” More

    • 100 Shares119 Views

      in Environment

      Susan Solomon wins VinFuture Award for Female Innovators

      by

      Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies Susan Solomon has been awarded the 2023 VinFuture Award for Female Innovators. Solomon was picked out of almost 1,400 international nominations across four categories for “The discovery of the ozone depletion mechanism in Antarctica, contributing to the establishment of the Montreal Protocol.” The award, which comes with a $500,000 prize, highlights outstanding female researchers and innovators that can serve as role models for aspiring scientists.

      “I’m tremendously humbled by that, and I’ll do my best to live up to it,” says Solomon, who attended the ceremony in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Dec. 20.

      The VinFuture Awards are given annually to “honor scientific research and breakthrough technological innovations that can make a significant difference” according to their site. In addition to Female Innovators, the award has two other special categories, Innovators from Developing Countries and Innovators with Outstanding Achievements in Emerging Fields, as well as their overall grand prize. The awards have been given out by the Vietnam-based VinFuture Foundation since 2021.

      “Countries all around the world are part of scientific progress and innovation, and that a developing country is honoring that is really very lovely,” says Solomon, whose career as an atmospheric chemist has brought her onto the international stage and has shown her firsthand how important developing countries are in crafting global policy.

      In 1986 Solomon led an expedition of 16 scientists to Antarctica to measure the degradation of the ozone layer; she was the only woman on the team. She and her collaborators were able to figure out the atmospheric chemistry of chlorofluorocarbons and other similar chemicals that are now known as ozone-depleting substances. This work became foundational to the creation of the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement that banned damaging chemicals and has allowed the ozone to recover.

      Solomon joined the MIT faculty in 2012 and holds joint appointments in the departments of Chemistry and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. The success of the Montreal Protocol demonstrates the ability for international cooperation to enact effective environmental agreements; Solomon sees it as a blueprint for crafting further policy when it comes to addressing global climate change.

      “Women can do anything, even help save the ozone layer and solve other environmental problems,” she says. “Today’s problem of climate change is for all of us to be involved in solving.” More

    • 75 Shares149 Views

      in Environment

      Q&A: A blueprint for sustainable innovation

      by

      Atacama Biomaterials is a startup combining architecture, machine learning, and chemical engineering to create eco-friendly materials with multiple applications. Passionate about sustainable innovation, its co-founder Paloma Gonzalez-Rojas SM ’15, PhD ’21 highlights here how MIT has supported the project through several of its entrepreneurship initiatives, and reflects on the role of design in building a holistic vision for an expanding business.

      Q: What role do you see your startup playing in the sustainable materials space?

      A: Atacama Biomaterials is a venture dedicated to advancing sustainable materials through state-of-the-art technology. With my co-founder Jose Tomas Dominguez, we have been working on developing our technology since 2019. We initially started the company in 2020 under another name and received Sandbox funds the next year. In 2021, we went through The Engine’s accelerator, Blueprint, and changed our name to Atacama Biomaterials in 2022 during the MITdesignX program. 

      This technology we have developed allows us to create our own data and material library using artificial intelligence and machine learning, and serves as a platform applicable to various industries horizontally — biofuels, biological drugs, and even mining. Vertically, we produce inexpensive, regionally sourced, and environmentally friendly bio-based polymers and packaging — that is, naturally compostable plastics as a flagship product, along with AI products.

      Q: What motivated you to venture into biomaterials and found Atacama?

      A: I’m from Chile, a country with a beautiful, rich geography and nature where we can see all the problems stemming from industry, waste management, and pollution. We named our company Atacama Biomaterials because the Atacama Desert in Chile — one of the places where you can best see the stars in the world — is becoming a plastic dump, as many other places on Earth. I care deeply about sustainability, and I have an emotional attachment to stop these problems. Considering that manufacturing accounts for 29 percent of global carbon emissions, it is clear that sustainability has a role in how we define technology and entrepreneurship, as well as a socio-economic dimension.

      When I first came to MIT, it was to develop software in the Department of Architecture’s Design and Computation Group, with MIT professors Svafa Gronfeldt as co-advisor and Regina Barzilay as committee member. During my PhD, I studied machine-learning methods simulating pedestrian motion to understand how people move in space. In my work, I would use lots of plastics for 3D printing and I couldn’t stop thinking about sustainability and climate change, so I reached out to material science and mechanical engineering professors to look into biopolymers and degradable bio-based materials. This is how I met my co-founder, as we were both working with MIT Professor Neil Gershenfeld. Together, we were part of one of the first teams in the world to 3D print wood fibers, which is difficult — it’s slow and expensive — and quickly pivoted to sustainable packaging. 

      I then won a fellowship from MCSC [the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium], which gave me freedom to explore further, and I eventually got a postdoc in MIT chemical engineering, guided by MIT Professor Gregory Rutledge, a polymer physicist. This was unexpected in my career path. Winning Nucleate Eco Track 2022 and the MITdesignX Innovation Award in 2022 profiled Atacama Biomaterials as one of the rising startups in Boston’s biotechnology and climate-tech scene.

      Q: What is your process to develop new biomaterials?

      A: My PhD research, coupled with my background in material development and molecular dynamics, sparked the realization that principles I studied simulating pedestrian motion could also apply to molecular engineering. This connection may seem unconventional, but for me, it was a natural progression. Early in my career, I developed an intuition for materials, understanding their mechanics and physics.

      Using my experience and skills, and leveraging machine learning as a technology jump, I applied a similar conceptual framework to simulate the trajectories of molecules and find potential applications in biomaterials. Making that parallel and shift was amazing. It allowed me to optimize a state-of-the-art molecular dynamic software to run twice as fast as more traditional technologies through my algorithm presented at the International Conference of Machine Learning this year. This is very important, because this kind of simulation usually takes a week, so narrowing it down to two days has major implications for scientists and industry, in material science, chemical engineering, computer science and related fields. Such work greatly influenced the foundation of Atacama Biomaterials, where we developed our own AI to deploy our materials. In an effort to mitigate the environmental impact of manufacturing, Atacama is targeting a 16.7 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions associated with the manufacturing process of its polymers, through the use of renewable energy. 

      Another thing is that I was trained as an architect in Chile, and my degree had a design component. I think design allows me to understand problems at a very high level, and how things interconnect. It contributed to developing a holistic vision for Atacama, because it allowed me to jump from one technology or discipline to another and understand broader applications on a conceptual level. Our design approach also meant that sustainability came to the center of our work from the very beginning, not just a plus or an added cost.

      Q: What was the role of MITdesignX in Atacama’s development?

      A: I have known Svafa Grönfeldt, MITdesignX’s faculty director, for almost six years. She was the co-advisor of my PhD, and we had a mentor-mentee relationship. I admire the fact that she created a space for people interested in business and entrepreneurship to grow within the Department of Architecture. She and Executive Director Gilad Rosenzweig gave us fantastic advice, and we received significant support from mentors. For example, Daniel Tsai helped us with intellectual property, including a crucial patent for Atacama. And we’re still in touch with the rest of the cohort. I really like this “design your company” approach, which I find quite unique, because it gives us the opportunity to reflect on who we want to be as designers, technologists, and entrepreneurs. Studying user insights also allowed us to understand the broad applicability of our research, and align our vision with market demands, ultimately shaping Atacama into a company with a holistic perspective on sustainable material development.

      Q: How does Atacama approach scaling, and what are the immediate next steps for the company?

      A: When I think about accomplishing our vision, I feel really inspired by my 3-year-old daughter. I want her to experience a world with trees and wildlife when she’s 100 years old, and I hope Atacama will contribute to such a future.

      Going back to the designer’s perspective, we designed the whole process holistically, from feedstock to material development, incorporating AI and advanced manufacturing. Having proved that there is a demand for the materials we are developing, and having tested our products, manufacturing process, and technology in critical environments, we are now ready to scale. Our level of technology-readiness is comparable to the one used by NASA (level 4).

      We have proof of concept: a biodegradable and recyclable packaging material which is cost- and energy-efficient as a clean energy enabler in large-scale manufacturing. We have received pre-seed funding, and are sustainably scaling by taking advantage of available resources around the world, like repurposing machinery from the paper industry. As presented in the MIT Industrial Liaison and STEX Program’s recent Sustainability Conference, unlike our competitors, we have cost-parity with current packaging materials, as well as low-energy processes. And we also proved the demand for our products, which was an important milestone. Our next steps involve strategically expanding our manufacturing capabilities and research facilities and we are currently evaluating building a factory in Chile and establishing an R&D lab plus a manufacturing plant in the U.S. More

    • 175 Shares99 Views

      in Environment

      K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research Center will prioritize innovations for resource-constrained communities

      by

      Billions of people worldwide face threats to their livelihood, health, and well-being due to poverty. These problems persist because solutions offered in developed countries often do not meet the requirements — related to factors like price, performance, usability, robustness, and culture — of poor or developing countries. Academic labs frequently try to tackle these challenges, but often to no avail because they lack real-world, on-the-ground knowledge from key stakeholders, and because they do not have an efficient, reliable means of converting breakthroughs to real-world impact.

      The new K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Center at MIT, founded with a $28 million gift from philanthropist and investor Lisa Yang, aims to rethink how products and technologies for resource-constrained communities are conceived, designed, and commercialized. A collaboration between MIT’s School of Engineering and School of Science, the Yang GEAR Center will bring together a multidisciplinary team of MIT researchers to assess today’s most pressing global challenges in three critical areas: global health, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the water-energy-food nexus.

      “As she has shown over and over through her philanthropy, Lisa Yang shares MIT’s passion for connecting fundamental research and real-world data to create positive impact,” says MIT president Sally Kornbluth. “I’m grateful for her powerful vision and incredible generosity in founding the K. Lisa Yang GEAR Center. I can’t imagine a better use of MIT’s talents than working to improve the lives and health of people around the world.”

      Yang’s gift expands her exceptional philanthropic support of human health and basic science research at MIT over the past six years. Yang GEAR Center will join MIT’s Yang Tan Collective, an assemblage of six major research centers focused on accelerating collaboration in basic science, research, and engineering to realize translational strategies that improve human health and well-being at a global scale.

      “Billions of people face daily life-or-death challenges that could be improved with elegant technologies,” says Yang. “And yet I’ve learned how many products and tools created by top engineers don’t make it out of the lab. They may look like clever ideas during the prototype phase, but they are entirely ill-suited to the communities they were designed for. I am very excited about the potential of a deliberate and thoughtful engineering effort that will prioritize the design of technologies for use in impoverished communities.”

      Cost, material availability, cultural suitability, and other market mismatches hinder many major innovations in global health, food, and water from being translated to use in resource-constrained communities. Yang GEAR Center will support a major research and design program with its mission to strategically identify compelling challenges and associated scientific knowledge gaps in resource-constrained communities then address them through academic innovation to create and translate transformative technologies.

      The center will be led by Amos Winter, associate professor of mechanical engineering, whose lab focuses on creating technologies that marry innovative, low-cost design with an in-depth understanding of the unique socioeconomic constraints of emerging markets.

      “Academia has a key role to play in solving the historically unsolvable challenges in resource-constrained communities,” says Winter. “However, academic research is often disconnected from the real-world requirements that must be satisfied to make meaningful change. Yang GEAR Center will be a catalyst for innovation to impact by helping colleagues identify compelling problems and focus their talents on realizing real-world solutions, and by providing mechanisms for commercial dissemination. I am extremely grateful to find in Lisa a partner who shares a vision for how academic research can play a more efficient and targeted role in addressing the needs of the world’s most disadvantaged populations.”

      The backbone of the Yang GEAR Center will be a team of seasoned research scientists and engineers. These individuals will scout real-world problems and distill the relevant research questions then help assemble collaborative teams. As projects develop, center staff will mentor students, build and conduct field pilots, and foster relationships with stakeholders around the world. They will be strategically positioned to translate technology at the end of projects through licensing and startups. Center staff and collaborators will focus on creating products and services for climate-driven migrants, such as solar-powered energy and water networks; technologies for reducing atmospheric carbon and promoting the hydrogen economy; brackish water desalination and irrigation solutions; and high-performance, global health diagnostics and devices.

      For instance, a Yang GEAR Center team focused on creating water-saving and solar-powered irrigation solutions for farmers in the Middle East and North Africa will continue its work in the region. They will conduct exploratory research; build a team of stakeholders, including farmers, agricultural outreach organizations, irrigation hardware manufacturers, retailers, water and agriculture scientists, and local government officials; design, rigorously test, and iterate prototypes both in the lab and in the field; and conduct large-scale field trials to garner user feedback and pave the way to product commercialization.

      “Grounded in foundational scientific research and blended with excellence in the humanities, MIT provides a framework that integrates people, economics, research, and innovation. By incorporating multiple perspectives — and being attentive to the needs and cultures of the people who will ultimately rely on research outcomes — MIT can have the greatest impact in areas of health, climate science, and resource security,” says Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the School of Science and the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics.

      An overarching aim for the center will be to educate graduates who are global engineers, designers, and researchers positioned for a career of addressing compelling, high-impact challenges. The center includes four endowed Hock E. Tan GEAR Center Fellowships that will support graduate students and/or postdoctoral fellows eager to enter the field of global engineering. The fellowships are named for MIT alumnus and Broadcom CEO Hock E. Tan ’75 SM ’75.

      “I am thrilled that the Yang GEAR Center is taking a leading role in training problem-solvers who will rethink how products and inventions can help communities facing the most pressing challenges of our time,” adds Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of the School of Engineering and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “These talented young students,  postdocs, and staff have the potential to reach across disciplines — and across the globe — to truly transform the impact engineering can have in the future.” More

    • 75 Shares129 Views

      in Environment

      Researchers release open-source space debris model

      by

      MIT’s Astrodynamics, Space Robotics, and Controls Laboratory (ARCLab) announced the public beta release of the MIT Orbital Capacity Assessment Tool (MOCAT) during the 2023 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Space Forum Workshop on Dec. 14. MOCAT enables users to model the long-term future space environment to understand growth in space debris and assess the effectiveness of debris-prevention mechanisms.

      With the escalating congestion in low Earth orbit, driven by a surge in satellite deployments, the risk of collisions and space debris proliferation is a pressing concern. Conducting thorough space environment studies is critical for developing effective strategies for fostering responsible and sustainable use of space resources. 

      MOCAT stands out among orbital modeling tools for its capability to model individual objects, diverse parameters, orbital characteristics, fragmentation scenarios, and collision probabilities. With the ability to differentiate between object categories, generalize parameters, and offer multi-fidelity computations, MOCAT emerges as a versatile and powerful tool for comprehensive space environment analysis and management.

      MOCAT is intended to provide an open-source tool to empower stakeholders including satellite operators, regulators, and members of the public to make data-driven decisions. The ARCLab team has been developing these models for the last several years, recognizing that the lack of open-source implementation of evolutionary modeling tools limits stakeholders’ ability to develop consensus on actions to help improve space sustainability. This beta release is intended to allow users to experiment with the tool and provide feedback to help guide further development.

      Richard Linares, the principal investigator for MOCAT and an MIT associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics, expresses excitement about the tool’s potential impact: “MOCAT represents a significant leap forward in orbital capacity assessment. By making it open-source and publicly available, we hope to engage the global community in advancing our understanding of satellite orbits and contributing to the sustainable use of space.”

      MOCAT consists of two main components. MOCAT-MC evaluates space environment evolution with individual trajectory simulation and Monte Carlo parameter analysis, providing both a high-level overall view for the environment and a fidelity analysis into the individual space objects evolution. MOCAT Source Sink Evolutionary Model (MOCAT-SSEM), meanwhile, uses a lower-fidelity modeling approach that can run on personal computers within seconds to minutes. MOCAT-MC and MOCAT-SSEM can be accessed separately via GitHub.

      MOCAT’s initial development has been supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and NASA’s Office of Technology and Strategy.

      “We are thrilled to support this groundbreaking orbital debris modeling work and the new knowledge it created,” says Charity Weeden, associate administrator for the Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy at NASA headquarters in Washington. “This open-source modeling tool is a public good that will advance space sustainability, improve evidence-based policy analysis, and help all users of space make better decisions.” More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Energy

      The future of motorcycles could be hydrogen

      by

      MIT’s Electric Vehicle Team, which has a long record of building and racing innovative electric vehicles, including cars and motorcycles, in international professional-level competitions, is trying something very different this year: The team is building a hydrogen-powered electric motorcycle, using a fuel cell system, as a testbed for new hydrogen-based transportation.

      The motorcycle successfully underwent its first full test-track demonstration in October. It is designed as an open-source platform that should make it possible to swap out and test a variety of different components, and for others to try their own versions based on plans the team is making freely available online.

      Aditya Mehrotra, who is spearheading the project, is a graduate student working with mechanical engineering professor Alex Slocum, the Walter M. May  and A. Hazel May Chair in Emerging Technologies. Mehrotra was studying energy systems and happened to also really like motorcycles, he says, “so we came up with the idea of a hydrogen-powered bike. We did an evaluation study, and we thought that this could actually work. We [decided to] try to build it.”

      Team members say that while battery-powered cars are a boon for the environment, they still face limitations in range and have issues associated with the mining of lithium and resulting emissions. So, the team was interested in exploring hydrogen-powered vehicles as a clean alternative, allowing for vehicles that could be quickly refilled just like gasoline-powered vehicles.

      Unlike past projects by the team, which has been part of MIT since 2005, this vehicle will not be entering races or competitions but will be presented at a variety of conferences. The team, consisting of about a dozen students, has been working on building the prototype since January 2023. In October they presented the bike at the Hydrogen Americas Summit, and in May they will travel to the Netherlands to present it at the World Hydrogen Summit. In addition to the two hydrogen summits, the team plans to show its bike at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month.

      “We’re hoping to use this project as a chance to start conversations around ‘small hydrogen’ systems that could increase demand, which could lead to the development of more infrastructure,” Mehrotra says. “We hope the project can help find new and creative applications for hydrogen.” In addition to these demonstrations and the online information the team will provide, he adds, they are also working toward publishing papers in academic journals describing their project and lessons learned from it, in hopes of making “an impact on the energy industry.”

      Play video

      For the love of speed: Building a hydrogen-powered motorcycle

      The motorcycle took shape over the course of the year piece by piece. “We got a couple of industry sponsors to donate components like the fuel cell and a lot of the major components of the system,” he says. They also received support from the MIT Energy Initiative, the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and the MIT Edgerton Center.

      Initial tests were conducted on a dynamometer, a kind of instrumented treadmill Mehrotra describes as “basically a mock road.” The vehicle used battery power during its development, until the fuel cell, provided by South Korean company Doosan, could be delivered and installed. The space the group has used to design and build the prototype, the home of the Electric Vehicle Team, is in MIT’s Building N51 and is well set up to do detailed testing of each of the bike’s components as it is developed and integrated.

      Elizabeth Brennan, a senior in mechanical engineering, says she joined the team in January 2023 because she wanted to gain more electrical engineering experience, “and I really fell in love with it.” She says group members “really care and are very excited to be here and work on this bike and believe in the project.”

      Brennan, who is the team’s safety lead, has been learning about the safe handling methods required for the bike’s hydrogen fuel, including the special tanks and connectors needed. The team initially used a commercially available electric motor for the prototype but is now working on an improved version, designed from scratch, she says, “which gives us a lot more flexibility.”

      As part of the project, team members are developing a kind of textbook describing what they did and how they carried out each step in the process of designing and fabricating this hydrogen electric fuel-cell bike. No such motorcycle yet exists as a commercial product, though a few prototypes have been built.

      That kind of guidebook to the process “just doesn’t exist,” Brennan says. She adds that “a lot of the technology development for hydrogen is either done in simulation or is still in the prototype stages, because developing it is expensive, and it’s difficult to test these kinds of systems.” One of the team’s goals for the project is to make everything available as an open-source design, and “we want to provide this bike as a platform for researchers and for education, where researchers can test ideas in both space- and funding-constrained environments.”

      Unlike a design built as a commercial product, Mehrotra says, “our vehicle is fully designed for research, so you can swap components in and out, and get real hardware data on how good your designs are.” That can help people work on implementing their new design ideas and help push the industry forward, he says.

      The few prototypes developed previously by some companies were inefficient and expensive, he says. “So far as we know, we are the first fully open-source, rigorously documented, tested and released-as-a-platform, [fuel cell] motorcycle in the world. No one else has made a motorcycle and tested it to the level that we have, and documented to the point that someone might actually be able to take this and scale it in the future, or use it in research.”

      He adds that “at the moment, this vehicle is affordable for research, but it’s not affordable yet for commercial production because the fuel cell is a very big, expensive component.” Doosan Fuel Cell, which provided the fuel cell for the prototype bike, produces relatively small and lightweight fuel cells mostly for use in drones. The company also produces hydrogen storage and delivery systems.

      The project will continue to evolve, says team member Annika Marschner, a sophomore in mechanical engineering. “It’s sort of an ongoing thing, and as we develop it and make changes, make it a stronger, better bike, it will just continue to grow over the years, hopefully,” she says.

      While the Electric Vehicle Team has until now focused on battery-powered vehicles, Marschner says, “Right now we’re looking at hydrogen because it seems like something that’s been less explored than other technologies for making sustainable transportation. So, it seemed like an exciting thing for us to offer our time and effort to.”

      Making it all work has been a long process. The team is using a frame from a 1999 motorcycle, with many custom-made parts added to support the electric motor, the hydrogen tank, the fuel cell, and the drive train. “Making everything fit in the frame of the bike is definitely something we’ve had to think about a lot because there’s such limited space there. So, it required trying to figure out how to mount things in clever ways so that there are not conflicts,” she says.

      Marschner says, “A lot of people don’t really imagine hydrogen energy being something that’s out there being used on the roads, but the technology does exist.” She points out that Toyota and Hyundai have hydrogen-fueled vehicles on the market, and that some hydrogen fuel stations exist, mostly in California, Japan, and some European countries. But getting access to hydrogen, “for your average consumer on the East Coast, is a huge, huge challenge. Infrastructure is definitely the biggest challenge right now to hydrogen vehicles,” she says.

      She sees a bright future for hydrogen as a clean fuel to replace fossil fuels over time. “I think it has a huge amount of potential,” she says. “I think one of the biggest challenges with moving hydrogen energy forward is getting these demonstration projects actually developed and showing that these things can work and that they can work well. So, we’re really excited to bring it along further.” More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Security

      A new way to swiftly eliminate micropollutants from water

      by

      “Zwitterionic” might not be a word you come across every day, but for Professor Patrick Doyle of the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering, it’s a word that’s central to the technology his group is developing to remove micropollutants from water. Derived from the German word “zwitter,” meaning “hybrid,” “zwitterionic” molecules are those with an equal number of positive and negative charges.

      Devashish Gokhale, a PhD student in Doyle’s lab, uses the example of a magnet to describe zwitterionic materials. “On a magnet, you have a north pole and a south pole that stick to each other, and on a zwitterionic molecule, you have a positive charge and a negative charge which stick to each other in a similar way.” Because many inorganic micropollutants and some organic micropollutants are themselves charged, Doyle and his team have been investigating how to deploy zwitterionic molecules to capture micropollutants in water. 

      In a new paper in Nature Water, Doyle, Gokhale, and undergraduate student Andre Hamelberg explain how they use zwitterionic hydrogels to sustainably capture both organic and inorganic micropollutants from water with minimal operational complexity. In the past, zwitterionic molecules have been used as coatings on membranes for water treatment because of their non-fouling properties. But in the Doyle group’s system, zwitterionic molecules are used to form the scaffold material, or backbone within the hydrogel — a porous three-dimensional network of polymer chains that contains a significant amount of water. “Zwitterionic molecules have very strong attraction to water compared to other materials which are used to make hydrogels or polymers,” says Gokhale. What’s more, the positive and negative charges on zwitterionic molecules cause the hydrogels to have lower compressibility than what has been commonly observed in hydrogels. This makes for significantly more swollen, robust, and porous hydrogels, which is important for the scale up of the hydrogel-based system for water treatment.

      The early stages of this research were supported by a seed grant from MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS). Doyle’s group is now pursuing commercialization of the platform for both at-home use and industrial scale applications, with support from a J-WAFS Solutions grant.

      Seeking a sustainable solution

      Micropollutants are chemically diverse materials that can be harmful to human health and the environment, even though they are typically found at low concentrations (micrograms to milligrams per liter) relative to conventional contaminants. Micropollutants can be organic or inorganic and can be naturally-occurring or synthetic. Organic micropollutants are mostly carbon-based molecules and include pesticides and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), known as “forever chemicals.” Inorganic micropollutants, such as heavy metals like lead and arsenic, tend to be smaller than organic micropollutants. Unfortunately, both organic and inorganic micropollutants are pervasive in the environment.

      Many micropollutants come from industrial processes, but the effects of human-induced climate change are also contributing to the environmental spread of micropollutants. Gokhale explains that, in California, for example, fires burn plastic electrical cables and leech micropollutants into natural ecosystems. Doyle adds that “outside of climate change, things like pandemics can spike the number of organic micropollutants in the environment due to high concentrations of pharmaceuticals in wastewater.”

      It’s no surprise then, that over the past few years micropollutants have become more and more of a concern. These chemicals have garnered attention in the media and led to “significant change in the environmental engineering and regulatory landscape” says Gokhale. In March 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a strict, federal standard that would regulate six different PFAS chemicals in drinking water. Just last October, the EPA proposed banning the micropollutant trichloroethylene, a cancer-causing chemical that can be found in brake cleaners and other consumer products. And as recently as November, the EPA proposed that water utilities nationwide be required to replace all of their lead pipes to protect the public from lead exposure. Internationally, Gokhale notes the Oslo Paris Convention, whose mission is to protect the marine environment of the northeast Atlantic Ocean, including phasing out the discharge of offshore chemicals from the oil and gas industries. 

      With each new, necessary regulation to protect the safety of our water resources, the need for effective water treatment processes grows. Compounding this challenge is the need to make water treatment processes that are sustainable and energy-efficient. 

      The benchmark method to treat micropollutants in water is activated carbon. However, making filters with activated carbon is energy-intensive, requiring very high temperatures in large, centralized facilities. Gokhale says approximately “four kilograms of coal are needed to make one kilogram of activated carbon, so you lose a significant amount of carbon dioxide to the environment.” According to the World Economic Forum, global water and wastewater treatment accounts for 5 percent of annual emissions. In the U.S. alone, the EPA reports that drinking water and wastewater systems account for over 45 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually.

      “We need to develop methods which have smaller climate footprints than methods which are being used industrially today,” says Gokhale.

      Supporting a “high-risk” project

      In September 2019, Doyle and his lab embarked on an initial project to develop a microparticle-based platform to remove a broad range of micropollutants from water. Doyle’s group had been using hydrogels in pharmaceutical processing to formulate drug molecules into pill format. When he learned about the J-WAFS seed grant opportunity for early-stage research in water and food systems, Doyle realized his pharmaceutical work with hydrogels could be applied to environmental issues like water treatment. “I would never have gotten funding for this project if I went to the NSF [National Science Foundation], because they would just say, ‘you’re not a water person.’ But the J-WAFS seed grant offered a way for a high-risk, high-reward kind of project,” Doyle says.

      In March 2022, Doyle, Gokhale, and MIT undergraduate Ian Chen published findings from the seed grant work, describing their use of micelles within hydrogels for water treatment. Micelles are spherical structures that form when molecules called surfactants (found in things like soap), come in contact with water or other liquids. The team was able to synthesize micelle-laden hydrogel particles that soak up micropollutants from water like a sponge. Unlike activated carbon, the hydrogel particle system is made from environmentally friendly materials. Furthermore, the system’s materials are made at room temperature, making them exceedingly more sustainable than activated carbon.

      Building off the success of the seed grant, Doyle and his team were awarded a J-WAFS Solutions grant in September 2022 to help move their technology from the lab to the market. With this support, the researchers have been able to build, test, and refine pilot-scale prototypes of their hydrogel platform. System iterations during the solutions grant period have included the use of the zwitterionic molecules, a novel advancement from the seed grant work.  

      Rapid elimination of micropollutants is of special importance in commercial water treatment processes, where there is a limited amount of time water can spend inside the operational filtration unit. This is referred to as contact time, explains Gokhale. In municipal-scale or industrial-scale water treatment systems, contact times are usually less than 20 minutes and can be as short as five minutes. 

      “But as people have been trying to target these emerging micropollutants of concern, they realized they can’t get to sufficiently low concentrations on the same time scales as conventional contaminants,” Gokhale says. “Most technologies focus only on specific molecules or specific classes of molecules. So, you have whole technologies which are focusing only on PFAS, and then you have other technologies for lead and metals. When you start thinking about removing all of these contaminants from water, you end up with designs which have a very large number of unit operations. And that’s an issue because you have plants which are in the middle of large cities, and they don’t necessarily have space to expand to increase their contact times to efficiently remove multiple micropollutants,” he adds.

      Since zwitterionic molecules possess unique properties that confer high porosity, the researchers have been able to engineer a system for quicker uptake of micropollutants from water. Tests show that the hydrogels can eliminate six chemically diverse micropollutants at least 10 times faster than commercial activated carbon. The system is also compatible with a diverse set of materials, making it multifunctional. Micropollutants can bind to many different sites within the hydrogel platform: organic micropollutants bind to the micelles or surfactants while inorganic micropollutants bind to the zwitterionic molecules. Micelles, surfactants, zwitterionic molecules, and other chelating agents can be swapped in and out to essentially tune the system with different functionalities based on the profile of the water being treated. This kind of “plug-and-play” addition of various functional agents does not require a change in the design or synthesis of the hydrogel platform, and adding more functionalities does not take away from existing functionality. In this way, the zwitterionic-based system can rapidly remove multiple contaminants at lower concentrations in a single step, without the need for large, industrial units or capital expenditure. 

      Perhaps most importantly, the particles in the Doyle group’s system can be regenerated and used over and over again. By simply soaking the particles in an ethanol bath, they can be washed of micropollutants for indefinite use without loss of efficacy. When activated carbon is used for water treatment, the activated carbon itself becomes contaminated with micropollutants and must be treated as toxic chemical waste and disposed of in special landfills. Over time, micropollutants in landfills will reenter the ecosystem, perpetuating the problem.

      Arjav Shah, a PhD-MBA candidate in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and the MIT Sloan School of Management, respectively, recently joined the team to lead commercialization efforts. The team has found that the zwitterionic hydrogels could be used in several real-world contexts, ranging from large-scale industrial packed beds to small-scale, portable, off-grid applications — for example, in tablets that could clean water in a canteen — and they have begun piloting the technology through a number of commercialization programs at MIT and in the greater Boston area.

      The combined strengths of each member of the team continue to drive the project forward in impactful ways, including undergraduate students like Andre Hamelberg, the third author on the Nature Water paper. Hamelberg is a participant in MIT’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). Gokhale, who is also a J-WAFS Fellow, provides training and mentorship to Hamelberg and other UROP students in the lab.

      “We see this as an educational opportunity,” says Gokhale, noting that the UROP students learn science and chemical engineering through the research they conduct in the lab. The J-WAFS project has also been “a way of getting undergrads interested in water treatment and the more sustainable aspects of chemical engineering,” Gokhale says. He adds that it’s “one of the few projects which goes all the way from designing specific chemistries to building small filters and units and scaling them up and commercializing them. It’s a really good learning opportunity for the undergrads and we’re always excited to have them work with us.”

      In four years, the technology has been able to grow from an initial idea to a technology with scalable, real-world applications, making it an exemplar J-WAFS project. The fruitful collaboration between J-WAFS and the Doyle lab serves as inspiration for any MIT faculty who may want to apply their research to water or food systems projects.

      “The J-WAFS project serves as a way to demystify what a chemical engineer does,” says Doyle. “I think that there’s an old idea of chemical engineering as working in just oil and gas. But modern chemical engineering is focused on things which make life and the environment better.” More

    • 50 Shares99 Views

      in Energy

      Shell joins MIT.nano Consortium

      by

      MIT.nano has announced that Shell, a global group of energy and petrochemical companies, has joined the MIT.nano Consortium.

      “With an international perspective on the world’s energy challenges, Shell is an exciting addition to the MIT.nano Consortium,” says Vladimir Bulović, the founding faculty director of MIT.nano and the Fariborz Maseeh (1990) Professor of Emerging Technologies. “The quest to build a sustainable energy future will require creative thinking backed by broad and deep expertise that our Shell colleagues bring. They will be insightful collaborators for the MIT community and for our member companies as we work together to explore innovative technology strategies.”

      Founded in 1907 when Shell Transport and Trading Co. merged with Royal Dutch, Shell has more than a century’s worth of experience in the exploration, production, refining, and marketing of oil and natural gas and the manufacturing and marketing of chemicals. Operating in over 70 countries, Shell has set a target to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050. To achieve this, Shell is supporting developments of low-carbon energy solutions such as biofuels, hydrogen, charging for electric vehicles, and electricity generated by solar and wind power.

      “In line with our Powering Progress strategy, our research efforts to become a net-zero emission energy company by 2050 will require intense collaboration with academic leaders across a wide range of disciplines,” says Rolf van Benthem, Shell’s chief scientist for materials science. “We look forward to engaging with the top-notch PIs [principal investigators] at MIT.nano who excel in fields like materials design and nanoscale characterization for use in energy applications and carbon utilization. Together we can work on truly sustainable solutions for our society.”

      Shell has been engaged in research collaborations with MIT since 2002 and is a founding member of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI). Recent MIT projects supported by Shell include an urban building energy model with the MIT Sustainable Design Laboratory that explores energy-saving building retrofits, a study of the role and impact of hydrogen-based technology pathways with MITEI, and a materials science and engineering project to design better batteries for electric vehicles.

      The MIT.nano Consortium is a platform for academia-industry collaboration centered around research and innovation emerging from nanoscale science and engineering at MIT. Through activities that include quarterly industry consortium meetings, Shell will gain insight into the work of MIT.nano’s community of users and provide advice to help guide and advance nanoscale innovations at MIT alongside the 11 other consortium companies:

      Analog Devices;
      Draper;
      Edwards;
      Fujikura;
      IBM Research;
      Lam Research;
      NC;
      NEC;
      Raith;
      UpNano; and
      Viavi Solutions.
      MIT.nano continues to welcome new companies as sustaining members. For more details, visit the MIT.nano Consortium page. More