New Scientist reporter Chen Ly writes that MIT researchers have developed a new technique that uses static electricity to remove the dust from solar panels, which could save around 45 billion liters of water annually. “I think water is a precious commodity that is very undervalued,” says Prof. Kripa Varanasi. “What I’m hoping is this will spur more people to think about water issues.”
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo visited MIT.nano this week, where she emphasized the importance of investing in semiconductor research and manufacturing, and noted that MIT is the “gold standard” for collaboration between academia and industry, reports Jake Freudberg for GBH News. “Ultimately, what we need is the great ideas and research that are beginning in universities to be turned into products made at scale in America,” said Raimondo.
WCBV reporter Sharman Sacchetti spotlights U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s visit to MIT.nano. “Investing in chip manufacturing and supply chain domestically will allow us to make more goods in America, which will bring down inflation,” said Raimondo of the importance of boosting domestic manufacturing of semiconductors.
Wired reporter Gregory Barber spotlights Prof. Desirée Plata’s work developing a new process for removing methane emissions using zeolite. Plata’s team is currently working on converting their system to a filter that air can be pushed through. “Plata wants to install the filters in places where methane is concentrated, but there’s not enough of it to burn,” Barber explains.
Prof. Jessika Trancik speaks with USA Today reporter Kate S. Petersen about claims that replacing all U.S. gas stations with equal capacity electric vehicle charging stations would require significant resources. “When we’re talking about EV charging, you don’t have to put charging stations everywhere you have gas stations today,” says Trancik. “This would not make sense as a plan for rolling out electric vehicle charging infrastructure.”
Amrita Saigal ’10 has created Kudos Diapers, a sustainable disposable diaper that allows a baby’s skin to touch nothing but pure cotton, reports Angela Yang for The Boston Globe. “We need to get to that point in the world where people opt for sustainable products not just because of the environmental aspects,” says Saigal. “But also because they’re like, ‘this is the best-performing product on the market.’”
Forbes contributor Carolina Milanesi spotlights Dr. Ana Pinheiro Privette ’98, the global lead for the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI), who collaborates with environmental nonprofits, private companies and government agencies to give researchers access to ASDI’s data catalog information. “I’m not sure if I am saving the world, but I’m at least helping people have more resources to do it,” says Pinheiro Privette.
Assaf Biderman ‘05, associate director of the MIT SENSEable City Lab, discusses his startup Superpedestrian, a transportation robotics company that has developed electric scooters available in over 60 cities across the world. “I think we hit the holy grail of micromobility, which is detecting when you’re on the sidewalk every time and stopping or slowing the vehicle,” said Biderman.
A report by researchers from MIT’s Center for Transportation & Logistics and the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals found that nearly half of supply chain professionals have remained committed to the same level of supply chain sustainability as before the Covid-19 pandemic, reports Laura Cooper for The Wall Street Journal. “The report, which surveyed some of 2,400 supply-chain industry professionals, also showed that 36% sought to increase their efforts to be more sustainable,” writes Cooper.
MIT researchers have developed an approach to control methane emissions by using zeolite clays with small amounts of copper, reports The Engineer. “The systems’ ideal location, the team concluded, would be in places with a concentrated source of methane such as dairy barns and coal mines,” according to The Engineer. “These already tend to have air-handling systems in place since a buildup of methane can be a safety hazard.”
MIT researchers have developed a new approach to removing methane emissions from the air using zeolite, an inexpensive material used in cat litter, reports Adele Peters for Fast Company. Prof. Desiree Plata explains that compared to carbon dioxide, “methane is actually much worse, from a global warming perspective. What this allows us to do is bring immediate climate benefit into the Earth system and actually change global warming rates in our lifetime.”
IEEE Spectrum reporter Prachi Patel writes that researchers from MIT and Google Brain have developed a new open-source tool that could streamline solar cell improvement and discovery. The new system should “speed up development of more efficient solar cells by allowing quick assessment of a wide variety of possible materials and device structures,” writes Patel.
Sean Hunt PhD ’16, M. Eng ’13 and Gaurab Chakrabarti co-founded Solugen after discovering a way to make chemicals from corn syrup instead of fossil fuels, reports Adele Peters for Fast Company. “Based on a detailed analysis of current products, the company estimates that it could theoretically produce 90% of the chemicals that are now produced by fossil fuels,” writes Peters.
Boston Globe reporter Janelle Nanos spotlight Spoiler Alert, an MIT startup that works with major food brands to save food that might have gone to waste. “One of our core beliefs is that waste is no longer a necessary or acceptable cost of doing business,” said Spoiler Alert cofounder and chief product officer Emily Malina MBA ’13. “Everything we do is geared towards moving perishable inventory faster to benefit brands, retailers, consumers, and the planet.”
Research fellow Laura Grego speaks with Slate reporter Seth Stevenson about the growing need to implement policies that help preserve space for all. “It’s not exactly any one person’s responsibility, it’s a shared resource,” says Grego. “We don’t have all of the laws and strategies and approaches to work on the military parts of space. We also don’t have all the regulations to work on the environmental aspects, what people call space sustainability, how do you create space that you can use for generations ahead? How do we make sure that we don’t pollute it? We have a lot of work to do.”