New Ways To Clean Up Our Energy Systems

New Eco-Friendly Processes

New uses and processes for old materials may help us overcome some of our biggest hurdles in the transition to a clean green energy system.

Professors Franz-Josef Ulm

Admir Masic, PhD

Franz-Josef Ulm and Admir Masic, professors at MIT, tell us about using ancient materials to help solve energy storage problems with carbon-concrete supercapacitors. Franz-Josef Ulm is in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Faculty Director of the Concrete Sustainability Hub. Admir Masic is Faculty Fellow in the Archaeological Materials MIT ReACT Hub, and founder of the Masic Lab at MIT, a Laboratory for Multiscale Characterization and Materials Design.

Amir Sheikhi, professor at Pennsylvania State University, will talk about a sustainable eco-friendly alternative to conventional rare earth elements extraction methods. Amir is in the department of Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. He founded the Bio-Soft Materials Laboratory at Penn State to tackle some of the quintessential challenges of the 21st century in biomedicine and the environment by designing novel bio-based soft material platforms via micro- and nanoengineering techniques.