DMSE

Boston Globe reporter Adelaide Parker spotlights Prof. Jeffrey Grossman’s course “Coffee Matters: Using the Breakerspace to Make the Perfect Cup,” a new course Grossman brewed up to provide students a hands-on experience with materials science in action. “The role of understanding materials … is broader than just our department,” explains Grossman. “You need physics and biology and chemistry to understand materials and how to make them, and then all these other engineering disciplines to do the engineering.” He envisions the Department of Materials Science and Engineering’s new Breakerspace lab as somewhere students from all majors can “get excited about understanding materials.”

Researchers at MIT have developed a “new type of transistor using semiconductor nanowires made up of gallium antimonide and iridium arsenide,” reports Alex Knapp for Forbes. “The transistors were designed to take advantage of a property called quantum tunneling to move electricity through transistors,” explains Knapp. 

Forbes reporter Amy Feldman spotlights the work of Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang, who has used his materials science research to “build an array of companies in areas like batteries, green cement and critical minerals that could really help mitigate the climate crisis.” Feldman notes that “as the climate crisis has become increasingly urgent, Yet-Ming Chiang’s ability to spin out companies from his research offers hope.” 

STAT lists “The Exceptions: Sixteen Women, MIT, and the Fight for Equality in Science,” by Kate Zernicke as a “best book on health and science to check out this summer.”  The book focuses on Prof. Nancy Hopkins’ “career, which culminates in not only numerous scientific successes but also a collaborative effort with 15 other women faculty demonstrating evidence of gender discrimination at MIT,” explains STAT. “This work led to studies to address gender equity at nine other universities.” 

MIT scientists have discovered that metals become harder when heated under certain conditions, reports Isabelle Dume for Physics World.  In an interview, Prof. Christopher Schuch says by bombarding metals with tiny bits of sapphire small enough to avoid shock waves, “the result is a clean and quantitative set of data that clearly reveals the counterintuitive ‘hotter-is-stronger’ effect.”

MIT startup, 24M, has designed an EV battery with a range of 1,000 miles on a single charge, reports Adele Peters for Fast Company. “The extra-long range also can help the car’s battery last much longer,” explains Peters. “If you use a rapid charger to fully charge a battery, it can damage the battery, meaning it won’t last as long. Because it has such a long range, the new battery should rarely need a full rapid charge.”

A new study by MIT engineers finds that heating metals can sometimes make them stronger, a “surprising phenomenon [that] could lead to a better understanding of important industrial processes and make for tougher aircraft,” reports Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. “It was just so unexpected or backwards of what you might conventionally see,” explains graduate student Ian Dowding. 

Prof. Emeritus Donald Sadoway co-founded Boston Metal, an MIT startup that has developed a carbon-free steel manufacturing process, reports Amy Feldman for Forbes. “Boston Metal’s process – which uses an electricity conducting, molten-metal proof anode to liquify iron ore, separating the pure metal without harmful byproducts – allows factories to create carbon-free steel as long as they use a clean energy source, such as hydroelectric power,” explains Feldman. “It also can create steel from lower-grade ores rather than relying on scarce high-grade ones. That’s an important advantage in terms of both cost and availability compared to other methods of making green steel, according to the company.”

Former postdoc Leah Ellis speaks with GBH All Things Considered host Arun Rath about   Sublime Systems, an MIT startup she co-founded that aims to produce carbon-free cement to combat climate change. “Sublime Systems and this technology spun out of my postdoctoral work at MIT,” says Ellis. “My co-founder and I are both electric chemists, so we have experience with battery technologies and electrochemical systems. Our idea was thinking about how we might use renewable energy—which we know has become more abundant, inexpensive and available—to eliminate the CO2 emissions from cement.”

MIT researchers have developed new technology that allows vaccines to be directly inserted into the lymph nodes to target two of the most common mutations in the KRAS gene, which cause roughly one third of all cancers, reports Jaimie Seaton for Scientific American. “The team modified the small vaccine components to include a fatty acid, which enables the vaccine to effectively hitch a ride on albumin, a common protein found throughout the body,” explains Seaton. “Albumin serves as a molecular shuttle bus, with pockets on its surface where fatty acids can bind to it.”

Sublime Systems, an MIT startup, is developing new technology to fully decarbonize the cement manufacturing process, reports Adele Peters for Fast Company. “Instead of using heat to break down rocks for cement, the startup uses chemistry to dissolve them, and then blends the components back together into what it calls ‘Sublime Cement,’” explains Peters. “The process can replace limestone with other minerals, including rocks found at high volumes in industrial waste, so it’s also possible to eliminate the emissions from limestone.”

Graduate student Zhichu Ren has developed CRESt (Copilot for Real-World Experimental Scientist), a lab assistant which “suggests experiments, retrieves data, manages equipment and guides research to the next steps in an experiment,” reports Ryan Heath for Axios.

ClimateWire reporter John Fialka writes that MIT engineers have developed a new process to convert carbon dioxide into a powder that can be safely stored for decades. “The MIT process gets closer to an ambitious dream: turning captured CO2 into a feedstock for clean fuel that replaces conventional batteries and stores electricity for months or years,” writes Fialka. “That could fill gaps in the nation's power grids as they transition from fossil fuels to intermittent solar and wind energy.”

Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang has been named to the TIME 100 Climate list, which highlights the world’s most influential climate leaders in business. “When it comes to cleantech, if it won’t scale, it doesn’t matter,” Chiang says. “This is a team sport—companies large and small, and governments state and federal, need to work together to get these new technologies out there where they can have impact.” 

President Biden has awarded Prof. Emeritus Subra Suresh ScD '81, the former dean of the MIT School of Engineering, the National Medal of Science for his “pioneering research across engineering, physical sciences, and life sciences,” reports Alexa Gagosz for The Boston Globe. Prof. James Fujimoto '79, SM '81, PhD '84, research affiliate Eric Swanson SM '84, and David Huang '85, SM '89, PhD '93 were awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, “the nation’s highest award for technical achievement.”