Energy
“If one advance could transform America's prospects, it would be ready access, at scale, to a range of affordable, renewable, low-carbon energy technologies. Only one path will lead to such transformative technologies: research.” - Susan Hockfield
When someone crumples a sheet of paper, that usually means it’s about to be thrown away. But researchers have now found that crumpling a piece of graphene “paper” — a material formed by bonding...
Yeast are commonly used to transform corn and other plant materials into biofuels such as ethanol. However, large concentrations of ethanol can be toxic to yeast, which has limited the production...
You might not picture former Secretary of State George Shultz PhD ’49 as someone who drives an electric car, or has solar panels on the roof of his home. But he does — and Shultz has become a...
The key to creating a material that would be ideal for converting solar energy to heat is tuning the material’s spectrum of absorption just right: It should absorb virtually all wavelengths of...
“Around the world at unprecedented rates, people are moving from the country to the city,” says Sheila Kennedy, professor of the practice at ...
Researchers at MIT have improved a proposed liquid battery system that could enable renewable energy sources to compete with conventional power plants.
Donald Sadoway and colleagues have...
A major limitation in the performance of solar cells happens within the photovoltaic material itself: When photons strike the molecules of a solar cell, they transfer their energy, producing quasi...
MIT professor Fikile Brushett is in the process of taking the power generated by wind and solar, chemically lashing it to molecules derived from flora and fauna, and storing it in liquids until it...
Life at MIT seems to suit Michael Short. Since arriving as a freshman in 2001, he’s earned four Institute degrees, served as lecturer and research scientist, worked extensively with hot metal at...
The 2014 Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation (NESD) convened on July 6 to prepare an independent policy statement in advance of a week of meetings with nuclear industry representatives,...
The challenge of selling any new idea is that it has to compete with every other new idea. The process is more difficult when the idea’s technology hasn’t existed and addresses an issue that some...
Solid core material is almost a given for technology. But just because the guts are right doesn’t guarantee success. The surface layer, in fact, can hold the key in some applications. Yet its...
Two MIT energy alumni were named top “Innovators under 35” by MIT Technology...
Silvija Gradečak has big intentions for small ingredients.
The associate professor of materials science and engineering at MIT focuses on energy-conversion and light-harvesting through the...
This could be a classic win-win solution: A system proposed by researchers at MIT recycles materials from discarded car batteries — a potential source of lead pollution — into new, long-lasting...
It’s estimated that more than half of U.S. energy — from vehicles and heavy equipment, for instance — is wasted as heat. Mostly, this waste heat simply escapes into the air. But that’s...
Intensifying calls for action on climate change have led to a variety of proposed regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions from specific sources of the economy, including, most recently, the...
Yogesh Surendranath was mesmerized by a magnet his parents gave him when he was five. Digging up the iron-rich soil in his Ohio backyard, he easily found treasure. What most fascinated him, though...
A new material structure developed at MIT generates steam by soaking up the sun.
The structure — a layer of graphite flakes and an underlying carbon foam — is a porous, insulating...
Last year, MIT researchers discovered that when water droplets spontaneously jump away from superhydrophobic surfaces during condensation, they can gain electric charge in the process. Now, the...
More than a century ago, engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla proposed a global system of wireless transmission of electricity — or wireless power. But one key obstacle to realizing this ambitious...
The fields of data communication, fabrication, and ultrasound imaging share a common challenge when it comes to improving speed and efficiency: light’s diffraction limit. Nicholas Fang thinks his...
In the search for a renewable energy source, systems using algae look like a good bet. Algae can grow quickly and in high concentrations in areas unsuitable for agriculture; and as they grow, they...
The availability of low-cost, high-capacity energy storage technology could profoundly change today’s energy landscape. The ability to store electricity when supplies are abundant and deliver it...
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that two MIT-led Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) received funding to continue their cutting-edge research. The centers are among 32...