Fast Company reporter Adele Peters writes that MIT researchers have developed a new type of concrete that can store energy, potentially enabling roads to be transformed into EV chargers and home foundations into sources of energy. “All of a sudden, you have a material which can not only carry load, but it can also store energy,” says Prof. Franz-Josef Ulm.
MIT engineers have uncovered a new way of creating an energy supercapacitor by combining cement, carbon black and water that could one day be used to power homes or electric vehicles, reports Jeremy Hsu for New Scientist. “The materials are available for everyone all over the place, all over the world,” explains Prof. Franz-Josef Ulm. “Which means we don’t have the same restriction as with batteries.”
MIT researchers have discovered that when combined with water, carbon black and cement can produce a low-cost supercapacitor capable of storing electricity for later use, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “With some further fine-tuning and experimentation, the team believes their enriched cement material could one day compose portions of buildings’ foundations, or even create wireless charging,” writes Paul.
Researchers at MIT have found that cement and carbon black can be combined with water to create a battery alternative, reports Robert Service for Science. Professor Franz-Josef Ulm and his colleagues “mixed a small percent of carbon black with cement powder and added water,” explains Service. “The water readily combines with the cement. But because the particles of carbon black repel water, they tend to clump together, forming long interconnected tendrils within the hardening cement that act like a network of wires.”
Researchers from MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) are using high-temperature superconducting tape as a key part of the design for their tokamak reactor, reports Tom Clynes for IEEE Spectrum. The researchers believe that “this novel approach will allow it to build a high-performance tokamak that is much smaller and less expensive than would be possible with previous approaches,” Clynes notes.
MIT has been selected as the world’s best university in the 2024 QS World University Rankings, reports Cecilia Rodriguez for Forbes. MIT has secured “the top position for the 12th consecutive year,” writes Rodriguez.
Prof. Yang Shao-Horn spoke at the State of the Art Jewelry Summit to discuss the jewelry industry’s impact on carbon emissions and sustainability efforts, reports Caroline Palmer for the Financial Times. Shao-Horn's suggestions to tackle the problem involved a mix of a carbon tax, “which could encourage the use of new technology, including electric vehicles, as well as shifting mining practices away from open site to the development of mobile mining vehicles powered by renewable energy or hydrogen,” writes Palmer.
Researchers from MIT and BU developed the Cleana toilet seat, which is aimed at addressing poor toilet etiquette, reports Katie Thompson for WCVB. “One toilet seat lifts and stays in the up position after the seat is placed down is designed for a more high-traffic commercial space,” writes Thompson. “The residential version, meanwhile, includes a seat and lid that are both designed to automatically lower after use, helping protect the open toilet bowl from small children and pets — as well as creating a better aesthetic look.”
Researchers at MIT have developed an extra-absorbent hydrogel that can draw water from the air, reports Ross Cristantiello for Boston.com. The new hydrogel “could potentially help communities ravaged by drought and make air conditioners more energy-efficient,” writes Cristantiello.
MIT researchers have found that when enhanced with salt, a rubbery hydrogel commonly found in diapers can absorb record amounts of moisture from the air, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “Across a wide variety of humidity conditions, the team’s enhanced hydrogel could swell and absorb impressive amounts of air moisture without leaking,” Paul notes.
Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray spotlights Cleana, a startup launched by engineers from MIT and BU that is developing “a new kind of toilet seat that raises or lowers itself to avoid unwelcome splashes, or to prevent objects from falling accidentally into the bowl.” Bray explains that “the company’s engineers created a semi-automatic seat that must first be raised or lowered by the user. This action powers up a pneumatic system with a built-in timer that waits about 30 seconds and then raises or lowers the seat, depending on the application.”
NBC Boston’s Jeff Saperstone visits MIT to learn more about how researchers discovered that a common hydrogel used in cosmetic creams, industrial coatings and pharmaceutical capsules can absorb moisture from the atmosphere as the temperature rises. The material could one day be used to harvest moisture for drinking water or feeding crops. “For a planet that's getting hotter, this could be a game-changing discovery,” Saperstone notes.
Founded by MIT engineers, CubicPV is building a solar-component factory, reports Phred Dvorak for The Wall Street Journal. CubicPV’s process “peels a thin layer of crystallized silicon off the top of the molten material, a technique the company says is faster, cheaper and less wasteful,” explains Dvorak.
Researchers at MIT have developed an ingestible pill that can raise levels of hormones to help increase appetite and decrease nausea, reports Maggie Chen for Wired. The researchers “hope that it can one day act as an effective noninvasive therapy for those who experience gastroparesis—or other eating disorders—essentially being a temporary switch that can be activated to drive hunger and digestion,” writes Chen.
VulcanForms, an MIT startup, is at the “leading edge of a push to transform 3-D printing from a niche technology — best known for new-product prototyping and art-class experimentation — into an industrial force,” writes David Scharfenberg for The Boston Globe. Scharfenberg notes that VulcanForms “could help usher in something new — a high-tech industrialism aimed straight at the country’s most pressing problems.”