<p>In this episode, we discuss how MIT researchers tackle the problem of counterfeit seeds by using unclonable labels made of silk nanoparticles. These labels help ensure that farmers are using genuine seeds, preventing losses and maintaining the integrity of crops.&nbsp;</p><p><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/b84075c2-bd3c-4a8f-b96b-c8dc6a2caa81?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe></span><br></p><hr><h3 id="isPasted">EPISODE NOTES</h3><p>(0:40) - <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/tackling-counterfeit-seeds-with-unclonable-labels" target="_blank">Tackling counterfeit seeds with &quot;unclonable&quot; labels 🌱🔐</a></p><hr><p id="isPasted">As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.</p><p>To learn more about this show, please visit our<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">&nbsp;shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published. Be sure to give us a follow and review on<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" target="_blank">&nbsp;Apple</a> podcasts,<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" target="_blank">&nbsp;Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!</p>

As a way to reduce seed counterfeiting, MIT researchers developed a silk-based tag that, when applied to seeds, provides a unique code that cannot be duplicated. Credit: Photograph courtesy of the researchers. Edited by Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT

In this episode, we discuss how MIT researchers tackle the problem of counterfeit seeds by using unclonable labels made of silk nanoparticles.

Podcast: Authenticating Seeds To 5X Crop Yields

<p id="isPasted">The realization of carbon neutrality that balances the amount of greenhouse gases emitted and absorbed; the use of solar power, wind power, and other renewable energies; various energy-saving measures&mdash;starting with the global movement to curb climate change, energy issues are being solved at a bewildering speed. These days, with the advance of digital transformation using AI, IoT, and other technologies regarding energy measures, it is no exaggeration to say that a paradigm shift is underway regarding the resolution of energy and environmental problems.</p><p>A technology called &quot;energy harvesting&quot; is newly attracting attention in this energy field. Harvesting is just that. It refers to a technology that &quot;harvests&quot; tiny amounts of energy from the surrounding environment and then converts it into electric power using voltage materials, modules, and sensors. It is also referred to as &quot;environmental power generation.&quot; This technology has two main advantages. The first, of course, is that it produces electric power from sunlight, vibrations, and other elements, which means that it is environmentally friendly. The second is proximity to energy source.&nbsp;</p><p>For example, let&#39;s say you want to install an IoT device to detect landslide disasters deep in the mountains and operate it continuously. It would be difficult to install electric power cables and other wiring due to the location. Furthermore, maintenance and costs would be an issue if you used batteries. However, by using energy harvesting to harvest energy from the surrounding environment, the device itself can produce electric power in places where wiring is difficult, allowing for operation of the IoT device semi-permanently.</p><p><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width: 768px;"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjg1NDM4NjkyODMzLWVuZXJneS1oYXJ2ZXN0LTAxLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><span class="fr-inner">Energy harvesting is expected to be widely used in IoT devices necessary for continuous operation, such as in predictive maintenance for infrastructure equipment.&nbsp;</span></span></span></p><h2 id="isPasted">Converting Various Types of Energy in the Environment into Electric Power</h2><p>Let&#39;s look at some of leading examples of how energy is harvested from the environment in energy harvesting.</p><h3>Vibrations</h3><p>Energy is extracted from the movement of objects such as vibrations or impacts. Specific examples include vibrations in roads on which cars drive and rails on which trains run. A familiar example is automatic faucets used in restroom wash areas and kitchens. It is possible to produce electric power by using the flow of water.</p><h3>Living Things</h3><p>Living things are also a source of energy. An electronic components company has started developing technology to generate power from sap. This is a mechanism whereby tiny amounts of electric power created by the reaction between water (xylem sap) passing through the plant conduit and electrodes is stored. Moreover, efforts are also progressing to convert into electric power tiny amounts of electrons emitted when microbes living in rice fields decompose the organic matter of feed.</p><h3>Heat</h3><p>It is also possible to produce electric power using heat. This includes heat emitted from motors, engines, and other parts of machines and automobiles; heat generated when draining water from buildings and factories; and heat from hot springs.</p><h3>Human Body</h3><p>Technological development is underway to generate power from sweat and the heartbeat in addition to forms of exercise such as running and cycling.</p><p><br></p><p>One issue with energy harvesting is that the amount of power generated is not that large, as only minute amounts of energy are collected. Nevertheless, considerable attention is being given to environment-derived energy, and it is expected to be applied to various fields.</p><p>For instance, electric vehicles that run on the power that they generate are expected to be developed for the mobility field. This will be achieved by converting into electric power the energy of heat, vibrations, and other elements of motors while traveling. That energy will then be charged to the battery. There is also demand for this technology in the area of IoT devices connected to security systems that need to be operated 24 hours a day and in the area of medical and nursing care facilities, where the continuous operation of equipment such as artificial respirators needs to be ensured even during a power outage.</p><p>How will energy harvesting permeate society in the future? What impact will it have on global climate change countermeasures? We will continue to keep an eye on the evolution of energy harvesting.</p><hr id="isPasted"><p><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjg1MDg2NjcyNTM4LTE2ODUwODY2NzI1MzgucG5nIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" class="fr-fic fr-dii"></p><p>If you have any questions based on this article that you would like to discuss with an expert at Murata, don&#39;t hesitate to reach out. There&#39;s an entire team ready to support you with your question.</p><p><a class="button-main-action" href="https://www.murata.com/en-eu/contactform?&Detail=Wevolver%20request" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">GET IN TOUCH</a></p><hr>

These days, with the advance of digital transformation using AI, IoT, and other technologies regarding energy measures, it is no exaggeration to say that a paradigm shift is underway regarding the resolution of energy and environmental problems.

Future of Electric Power Realized by Energy Harvesting

<p id="isPasted">Sustainable manufacturing is essential to preserving the finite natural resources of the planet. While the term has become something of a mantra in recent years, it&rsquo;s now also forming a central pillar of business and economic activity.</p><h2><strong>Investing in sustainable wireless tech</strong></h2><p>The IoT will form a key platform for many sustainable initiatives. And although its implementation will have a significant upfront energy cost, the long-term savings will quickly compensate for this. A Transforma Insights and 6GWorld report, <em>Sustainability in New and Emerging Technologies In 2030</em>, found that IoT technology will generate enough savings to pay back the energy cost of its manufacture and deployment and save around eight times the energy it consumes.</p><p>The benefits of the data it gathers will also more than justify the IoT&rsquo;s environmental footprint. When combined effectively with, for example, Machine Learning (ML) applications, the IoT will gather large amounts of information to help people and organizations better understand their energy costs and make informed environmental decisions, or even automate them using technology such as smart energy distribution.</p><h2><strong>Managing e-waste the sustainable way</strong></h2><p>The heart of the IoT is its digital network. This relies on electronics that, since the 1980s, have expanded more rapidly than most other industries, and this growth rate is showing no signs of slowing down. According to analyst Fortune Business Insights, the silicon chip sector alone will expand from $527 billion in 2021 to $1.3 trillion in 2029.</p><p>This rapid growth makes managing electronic waste (&ldquo;e-waste&rdquo;) one of the most important environmental issues. However, things are moving in the right direction; according to the UN, 20 percent of e-waste is successfully recycled today. The UN has also announced a plan to substantially reduce any waste occurring in the first place through reduction, repair, and recycling.</p><h2><strong>Developing sustainable solutions</strong></h2><p>Nordic Semiconductor is helping developers do their bit to create IoT solutions that cut down on the use of finite resources. For example, the Smarter Sustainable World Challenge with Nordic Semiconductor competition&mdash;launched in conjunction with hardware education community hackster.io (an Avnet company)&mdash;encouraged participants to plan, design, and prototype cutting-edge solutions to reduce humanity&rsquo;s ecological footprint using sensors and wireless connectivity. Participants were provided with the <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-hardware/Nordic-Thingy-53?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nordic Thingy:53</a> multiprotocol prototyping platform to help them fulfill their innovative ideas.</p><p>The overall winner, Elijah Maluleke from South Africa, created a smart water tap leakage controller that automatically closes a valve whenever there is an abnormal flow of water through the water tap. When multiplied by millions of water sources, the volume of water saved by this device would have a huge impact. Another entrant, Mateusz Pająk from Poland, used the IoT technology to create a vertical soilless farm built to fight the food storage crisis and achieve maximum yield.</p><p>We&#39;re excited to announce our latest competition, the Connect for Good: Low Power Sustainability Challenge, in collaboration with Wevolver and contest sponsors Mouser Electronics, Soracom, and Crowd Supply. This competition is now accepting entries until October 12, 2023. We encourage all participants to join and showcase their talents, using the nRF9160 DK.</p><p><strong><span data-hs-drop="true"><a class="button-main-action" href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/cs/c/?cta_guid=11eac991-b2da-4da8-ab8a-9d5925d70263&signature=AAH58kE4we_86bp-XSwP4X2_En36-Rwspg&pageId=114801033248&placement_guid=61092daa-b1bc-4914-a543-c9e11245cec7&click=77d5601e-9f1b-44b5-9f4b-062b98acca5d&hsutk=5d0ae30d5ae177596e5660b413b00e7f&canon=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.nordicsemi.com%2Fgetconnected%2Fhow-the-iot-can-help-create-a-more-sustainable-future&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.nordicsemi.com%2Fgetconnected%3Futm_campaign%3D2021+wevolver&portal_id=1961165&redirect_url=APefjpEaJKPUPPxROPwYtS92diTaSpEsgU3yUEdyONqss4hQnZI1xauqSlO8Dn1ivUfj3Lce83eijg_ty3AOIwCxp5t4CjXVw_zS6mUXY7zF6TrHOQ7VmagjMpIXZGgGOlcYw7TzQKBZnpPQz8_dS4k8qvbRRMNMpGUA54RguQMag1UIPa9RZKN9D52HGL2xoDUllImvuPojA5b0MuV9GPD27x4Cg8RXDdVuJqErtM5OiZ3HLdr0Q_TcS7mNDeQZ4Cgbq6mdMShISbFOD5TRppI6R8DwnBlqsE0tElLRq0rfYarddiu97FX6zKBDb_d3CfdET3h3CjucRDY1uijyiyCtFIGNeur3-MUUQ4xiT2K4uEjB2I4GIT0&__hstc=8439722.5d0ae30d5ae177596e5660b413b00e7f.1681711728655.1684404070741.1685018960669.6&__hssc=8439722.2.1685018960669&__hsfp=438247065&contentType=blog-post" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Submit a competition project Connect for Good "><strong>Submit a competition project</strong></a></span></strong></p><h2><strong>Monitoring key resources</strong></h2><p>Nordic&rsquo;s customers are also developing innovative commercial solutions to help other businesses and communities work towards a greener future. One example is China-based <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/News/2022/10/MOKO-Smarts-MK117NB-Smart-Plug-uses-nRF52833-and-nRF9160?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MOKO Smart</a>&rsquo;s MK117NB Smart Plug, a Nordic-powered <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Bluetooth-Low-Energy?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bluetooth LE</a>/<a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Low-power-cellular-IoT?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">cellular IoT</a> electricity plug that can monitor energy usage and reduce power consumption by remotely controlling load switches.</p><p>Another example is Canadian technology firm <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/News/2022/01/AquaSensings-Leak-Sensor-10-employs-nRF52832-SoC?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AquaSensing</a>&rsquo;s Leak Sensor 1.0, a battery-free, self-powered leak detection device that uses a sensor as both its power source and for detecting water leaks. The solution harvests energy from this fluid to power the Nordic nRF52832 SoC that wirelessly connects to a smartphone, where the user can receive alerts of any leaks.</p><h2><strong>Building sustainable solutions&hellip;</strong></h2><p>Nordic&rsquo;s customers can use the company&rsquo;s flexible IoT solutions by customizing the balance between the product&rsquo;s duty cycle, throughput, and battery life to suit the application&#39;s needs. In doing so, they can lower the energy consumption of their end-products. This is especially beneficial for the planet as Nordic products are used in millions of IoT applications ranging from energy, travel, transport, agriculture, manufacturing, waste handling, smart cities, and more.</p><p>Nordic also builds its products to last for many years while ensuring new iterations are backward compatible with previous generations of its products. Software can be continuously upgraded to include new features through over-the-air software updates. These updates make it easy for customers to enhance the performance and lower the energy consumption of products in the field without the need to replace hardware.</p><h2><strong>&hellip;and eliminating batteries</strong></h2><p>Network equipment provider Cisco suggests that there could be more than 50 billion wireless and cellular IoT sensors in as little as a decade. Many of these will be powered by batteries. Aside from being difficult to replace every time they run out, there is the environmental impact of mining materials such as lithium for battery manufacture and transporting and eventually disposing of the cells.</p><p>Nordic has continually lowered the power consumption of its wireless solutions without compromising performance. The modest power consumption of its latest generation of products means that, in certain applications, energy from harvested sources alone can power the product.</p><p>Tomorrow&rsquo;s wireless solutions will be even more efficient, dramatically extending the range of applications that can harvest all their energy from the environment. And a new generation of <a href="https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Power-Management" rel="noopener" target="_blank">power management</a> ICs (PMICs), customized for energy harvesting devices, will stabilize the variability of harvested-energy sources and play a significant part in freeing IoT products from batteries.</p><h2><strong>The future of sustainability</strong></h2><p>Together with clever engineers and environmentally aware consumers, Nordic&rsquo;s IoT solutions can ensure sustainability becomes a part of everything we design, manufacture, use, and eventually sensitively discard. If we embrace wireless technology and all do our part to reduce energy consumption and waste, the future for the planet will be much brighter.</p><hr><p>This article was first published on Nordic&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" id="isPasted"></a><a href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Get Connected Blog</a>. &nbsp;</p>

Sustainable manufacturing is essential to preserving the finite natural resources of the planet. While the term has become something of a mantra in recent years, it’s now also forming a central pillar of business and economic activity.

How the IoT can help create a more sustainable future

The prototype fuel cell is wrapped in a fleece and is slightly larger than a thumbnail. (Photograph: Fussenegger Lab / ETH Zurich)

In this episode, we're exploring a groundbreaking innovation from ETH Zurich that could revolutionize how we power wearable devices. It's time to say goodbye to conventional batteries and hello to a sustainable, continuous, and convenient power source.

Podcast: Power Up Your Wearable Devices with Blood Sugar!

<p id="isPasted"><strong>Whether on glass surfaces of buildings, greenhouses or vehicles - with semi-transparent photovoltaics, usable areas for a climate-friendly energy supply could be significantly increased.&nbsp;In the SEMTRASOL research project, researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are developing solar cells with precisely adjustable absorption properties and high efficiency.</strong></p><p>Organic solar cells are not only light, non-toxic, independent of rare raw materials and can be printed inexpensively and on a large scale.&nbsp;Compared to other photovoltaic technologies, they have another outstanding property: They can be made semi-transparent, which opens up many new applications.&nbsp;While silicon photovoltaics are now ubiquitously used to generate energy, the benefits of organic solar cells have been greatly underestimated.&nbsp;&quot;So the big breakthrough on the market hasn&#39;t materialized so far,&quot; says Dr.&nbsp;Christian Sprau from the Light Technology Institute of KIT.&nbsp;With his newly started research group and the SEMTRASOL research project, he wants to change that: &quot;With new material concepts and the latest organic semiconductors, it is becoming increasingly possible to</p><h2><strong>Use on window fronts or in agriculture</strong></h2><p>Organic solar cells use carbon-based semiconductors, which are typically characterized by narrow-band absorption ranges.&nbsp;Thanks to the development of novel acceptors, i.e. the electron-accepting molecules in the light-absorbing layer in a solar cell, they can now achieve efficiencies of up to 20 percent in the laboratory.&nbsp;Due to the large number of these new materials and in combination with targeted component design, it is possible to absorb incident light in precisely defined spectral ranges with a semi-transparent solar cell.&nbsp;In this way, areas can be used more than once in the future, Sprau explains: &quot;In agrivoltaics, for example, only the wavelengths required for growth have to reach the plants,&nbsp;whereas they are protected from other spectral components of light and can thus be prevented from drying out.&nbsp;The window front of a high-rise building, on the other hand, only has to let through the light that the human eye perceives as brightness.&nbsp;In both cases, high energy harvests can be achieved simultaneously with the unused portions of the sunlight.&rdquo;</p><h2><strong>Booster for an accelerated energy transition</strong></h2><p>According to the research team at KIT, a double use of space by photovoltaics will play an important role so that Germany and Europe can achieve climate neutrality in good time.&nbsp;The technological requirements have been met, and with SEMTRASOL they now want to be combined.&nbsp;&quot;Specific goals are tailoring the transparency, a printable and scalable component architecture, the use of the latest materials and environmentally friendly production,&quot; explains Sprau.&nbsp;&quot;It&#39;s not trivial, but I&#39;m convinced that semi-transparent solar cells will be a natural part of our everyday lives in the not too distant future.&quot; (mhe)</p><hr><h3><strong>About SEMTRASOL</strong></h3><p>The research project SEMTRASOL (stands for: Printable semi-transparent organic solar cells for photovoltaic surfaces of the future) is running at the Materials Science Center for Energy Systems and at the Light Technology Institute of KIT. The Vector Foundation is funding the research work as part of the junior group program &quot;MINT for the Environment&quot; with one million euros for four years.</p>

In the research project SEMTRASOL, highly efficient, semi-transparent organic solar cells are being developed at KIT (Photo: KIT)

KIT develops highly efficient, semi-transparent organic solar cells

Photovoltaics: Energy Supply with a View

<p id="isPasted">Plastics are everywhere in our daily lives, but not all plastics are created equal &shy;&ndash; far from it.&nbsp;Take, for instance, polyethylene terephthalate, which is used to make plastic soda bottles and clothing fibers and is a key contributor to plastic pollution. Then there&rsquo;s high-density polyethylene, from which shampoo bottles, milk jugs, and cutting boards are derived. And don&rsquo;t forget polystyrene for packaging, or low-density polyethylene, which gives us cling wrap and grocery bags.</p><p>All of these are plastics, which are the most widely used types of polymers &ndash; macromolecules made of repeating units of small molecules called monomers. Post-consumer plastics are almost always collected as a mixed stream of waste, and products are often manufactured from two or more types of plastics.</p><p>The bad news about collecting them in this way &nbsp;is that these items, though all &ldquo;plastics,&rdquo; are chemically and physically incompatible, and there&rsquo;s no good industrial method for reusing or re-processing them into other, useful products. That&rsquo;s why most of those &ldquo;recyclables&rdquo; that many of us &nbsp;throw into recycle bins every week are going to a landfill. Even after careful sorting and separation into individual plastics, mechanical recycling usually yields inferior products, termed down-cycling.</p><p>Polymer chemists at Columbia University and Colorado State University, have long been leaders in finding ways to tackle the environmental problems humans have created with plastics waste. Now, they&rsquo;ve come up with fundamental new chemistry that seeds a creative, chemistry-based solution to the challenge of recycling mixed-use plastics. &nbsp;</p><p>Led by Columbia Professors <a href="https://www.chem.columbia.edu/content/tomislav-rovis" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tomislav Rovis</a> and <a href="https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/faculty/sanat-kumar" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sanat Kumar</a>, and collaborators at Colorado State University, the team has devised a new chemical strategy that delivers specifically designed small molecules called universal dynamic crosslinkers into mixed plastic streams. These crosslinkers transform a formerly immiscible muck into a viable new set of polymers, which can be turned into new, higher-value, re-processable materials, a process known as upcycling. Their work is published in the journal, Nature.</p><p>When heated and processed together with the dynamic crosslinkers added in small amounts, the mixed plastics are made compatible with each other through in-situ formation of a new material, called a multiblock copolymer.&nbsp;</p><p>Kumar, the Bykhovsky Professor of Chemical Engineering at <a href="https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Columbia Engineering</a> likened the block copolymers to soap molecules, which make water compatible with oily dirt molecules. &ldquo;In a similar way, these new types of dynamically formed &lsquo;soaps,&rsquo; i.e. the block copolymers, compatibilize mixed plastics and make them usable as a new kind of material with useful properties.&rdquo;</p><p>This new method of upcycling, which does not involve deconstructing or reconstructing any of the original polymers, introduces a potential solution for recapturing materials and energy endowed in post-consumer mixed plastics that typically end up in landfills.</p><blockquote><p>These new types of dynamically formed &lsquo;soaps,&rsquo; i.e. the block copolymers, compatibilize mixed plastics and make them usable as a new kind of material with useful properties.&nbsp;<br>- <span style="background-color: transparent;">SANAT KUMAR,&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: transparent;">MICHAEL BYKHOVSKY AND CHARO GONZALEZ-BYKHOVSKY PROFESSOR OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING</span></p></blockquote><p id="isPasted">The team designed their crosslinkers and tested them on a variety of plastics including samples of mixed polyethylene zip-lock bags and polylactide cups without prior purification or removal of additives or dyes, which are typically present in post-consumer plastic products. They combined their experiments with modeling studies to verify that the crosslinkers induce the formation of new multiblock copolymers.</p><p>&ldquo;The system is so efficient, it compatibilizes three different polymers into a single new material,&rdquo; said Rovis, the Samuel Latham Mitchill Professor of Chemistry at Columbia.</p><p>The researchers posit that their new strategy could help achieve the ultimate goal of reusing mixed plastic waste over multiple use cycles, Chen said. &ldquo;A key barrier is cost; we are talking about millions of tons of plastic waste, and you have to consider how many of these dynamic crosslinkers you need, although we currently need only less than 5% of the weight of the plastics in our upcycling process. Like many fundamental discoveries made in history, practical obstacles exist at the very beginning, but we are very excited about future potential.&rdquo;</p><hr><h2 id="isPasted"><strong>Learn more about Sanat Kumar and his research</strong></h2><p><strong><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GWtJUYfuLQg?&wmode=opaque&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe></span></strong><em>Sanat Kumar&#39;s work has reshaped the way researchers think about polymers, particularly in confined geometries. And, as both an engineer and an educator he&#39;s reshaping how to think about the problems we tackle and their impact on society. </em></p>

Photo Credit: Josep Curto/Shutterstock.com

Polymer chemists at Columbia University and Colorado State University have developed a fundamental new chemistry that seeds a creative, chemistry-based solution to the challenge of recycling mixed-use plastics.

An Upcycling Solution to Mixed Plastics Rooted in New Chemistry

Improving the lives of people all over the world without harming the planet is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity. 


Meeting the UN sustainable development goals with technology-driven smarter cities

<p id="isPasted">In the early 2000s, Uruguay experienced a crippling energy crisis. Lacking oil or natural gas reserves, the Uruguayan government realized that if the country were to become energy independent, it had to move forward with renewables. Today, more than 95% of Uruguay&rsquo;s electricity is generated from renewable sources, chiefly wind and hydropower.</p><p>However, renewables are intermittent, so ensuring a reliable power supply at peak demand times requires an expensive over-installation of capacity. This, in turn, results in excess of energy at times when the demand is not at its peak. This excess of energy can be sold to neighboring countries/states, but a problem remains: If neighboring countries/states don&rsquo;t need the energy, then what do you do with it?</p><p>This question challenged&nbsp;<a href="https://engineering.cmu.edu/directory/bios/torres-ana-ines.html" target="_blank">Ana Torres</a>, an assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cheme.engineering.cmu.edu/index.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Department of Chemical EngineeringOpens in new window</a>, who began her academic career in Uruguay.</p><p>She published several papers on storing the excess of renewable energy in batteries in Uruguay, but then, she notes, &ldquo;the country saw the opportunity to use the surplus of renewable energy to produce green hydrogen.&rdquo;</p><p>With the Uruguayan electricity sector decarbonized, Torres, who focuses on process systems engineering for clean and sustainable energy, saw opportunities for using green hydrogen to decarbonize transportation, along with other aspects of the Uruguayan economy, including the chemical industry. &nbsp;</p><p>According to Torres, the International Renewable Energy Agency posits that &ldquo;the hydrogen economy is expected to account for 12% of final energy use by 2050 in a below 1.5C degree global warming scenario.&rdquo; But generating large amounts of hydrogen from renewables is not cheap or easy. Green hydrogen results when water goes through a process called electrolysis that is powered by renewable sources. During this process, an electrolyzer splits the water into hydrogen and oxygen. There are different ways to make green hydrogen, but prior to Torres&rsquo; research, there wasn&rsquo;t a systematic way to determine the best methods for commercial production.</p><p>Using Uruguay as a test study, Torres spent two years creating an all-encompassing superstructure-based optimization framework that evaluates green-hydrogen production at different scales by the selection of power sources, different types and sizes of electrolyzers, and storage devices.</p><blockquote><p>This superstructure is a process of all processes.</p><cite><strong>Ana Torres<cite style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400;">,&nbsp;</cite><span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400;">Assistant Professor</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400;">, Chemical Engineering</span></strong></cite></blockquote><p>&ldquo;This superstructure is a process of all processes,&rdquo; says Torres. &nbsp;&ldquo;We have this superstructure, as we call it, that is a master flow sheet that accounts for all the possibilities for producing green hydrogen from different sources of renewable energy. We can write a model from that, and we can solve that model using optimization techniques.&rdquo;</p><p>The framework&rsquo;s flexibility allows for technologies to be evaluated in a way that takes advantage of their different efficiencies and costs. To test the framework, she conducted four test cases that featured small-sized hydrogen production plants and large-scale hydrogen production. Two of the studies evaluated the technologies to find optimal combinations and run what-if scenarios to identify synergies. While the other two studies aimed to satisfy an application by only considering technology devices already on the market.</p><p>Through simulations, Torres determined that solid oxide electrolyzers hold future promise, and if we are to choose currently available market alternatives, then alkaline electrolysis is preferred over proton exchange membrane electrolysis. Electrolyzers are key to green-hydrogen production, and the insight from Torres&rsquo; research contributes much needed information on the performance and operating costs of electrolyzer systems.</p><p>&ldquo;In this model, we used data from Uruguay, but the idea now is to use data from the United States to see if the same processes that I observed in Uruguay will also be optimal in the United States,&rdquo; says Torres. &ldquo;My guess is that they won&rsquo;t because here in the United States, it&rsquo;s a much larger country with more climate options. For example, you have a desert where there is not much wind but more sun. That would change the economics of the process for sure, but it might also change which type of technology is more relevant for that region.&rdquo;</p><p>&ldquo;From a process design perspective, green-hydrogen production is a much more difficult problem than the problems we have been taught to solve. It&rsquo;s very difficult because of the intermittences. We cannot design a process for a steady state. We must design processes that work at less than 90% or 100% capacity, and we have to be able to shut the systems on and off as required.&rdquo;</p>

Researchers invent an all-encompassing optimization framework to design green-hydrogen production processes.

A framework to advance green-hydrogen production

<p>This article was first published on&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2023/temperatures-rise-hydrogel-material-keeps-absorbing-moisture-0418" id="isPasted" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MIT News</a>. &nbsp;</p><hr><p id="isPasted">The vast majority of absorbent materials will lose their ability to retain water as temperatures rise. This is why our skin starts to sweat and why plants dry out in the heat. Even materials that are designed to soak up moisture, such as the silica gel packs in consumer packaging, will lose their sponge-like properties as their environment heats up.</p><p>But one material appears to uniquely resist heat&rsquo;s drying effects. MIT engineers have now found that polyethylene glycol (PEG) &mdash; a hydrogel commonly used in cosmetic creams, industrial coatings, and pharmaceutical capsules &mdash; can absorb moisture from the atmosphere even as temperatures climb.</p><p>The material doubles its water absorption as temperatures climb from 25 to 50 degrees Celsius (77 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit), the team reports.</p><p>PEG&rsquo;s resilience stems from a heat-triggering transformation. As its surroundings heat up, the hydrogel&rsquo;s microstructure morphs from a crystal to a less organized &ldquo;amorphous&rdquo; phase, which enhances the material&rsquo;s ability to capture water.</p><p>Based on PEG&rsquo;s unique properties, the team developed a model that can be used to engineer other heat-resistant, water-absorbing materials. The group envisions such materials could one day be made into devices that harvest moisture from the air for drinking water, particularly in arid desert regions. The materials could also be incorporated into heat pumps and air conditioners to more efficiently regulate temperature and humidity.</p><p>&ldquo;A huge amount of energy consumption in buildings is used for thermal regulation,&rdquo; says Lenan Zhang, a research scientist in MIT&rsquo;s Department of Mechanical Engineering. &ldquo;This material could be a key component of passive climate-control systems.&rdquo;</p><p>Zhang and his colleagues detail their work in a&nbsp;<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adma.202211763" target="_blank">study</a> appearing today in&nbsp;<em>Advanced Materials</em>. MIT co-authors include Xinyue Liu, Bachir El Fil, Carlos Diaz-Marin, Yang Zhong, Xiangyu Li, and Evelyn Wang, along with Shaoting Lin of Michigan State University.</p><h2><strong>Against intuition</strong></h2><p>Evelyn Wang&rsquo;s group in MIT&rsquo;s Device Research Lab aims to address energy and water challenges through the design of new materials and devices that sustainably manage water and heat. The team discovered PEG&rsquo;s unusual properties as they were assessing a slew of similar hydrogels for their water-harvesting abilities.</p><p>&ldquo;We were looking for a high-performance material that could capture water for different applications,&rdquo; Zhang says. &ldquo;Hydrogels are a perfect candidate, because they are mostly made of water and a polymer network. They can simultaneously expand as they absorb water, making them ideal for regulating humidity and water vapor.&rdquo;</p><p>The team analyzed a variety of hydrogels, including PEG, by placing each material on a scale that was set within a climate-controlled chamber. A material became heavier as it absorbed more moisture. By recording a material&rsquo;s changing weight, the researchers could track its ability to absorb moisture as they tuned the chamber&rsquo;s temperature and humidity.</p><p>What they observed was typical of most materials: as the temperature increased, the hyrogels&rsquo; ability to capture moisture from the air decreased. The reason for this temperature-dependence is well-understood: With heat comes motion, and at higher temperatures, water molecules move faster and are therefore more difficult to contain in most materials.</p><p>&ldquo;Our intuition tells us that at higher temperatures, materials tend to lose their ability to capture water,&rdquo; says co-author Xinyue Liu. &ldquo;So, we were very surprised by PEG because it has this inverse relationship.&rdquo;</p><p>In fact, they found that PEG grew heavier and continued to absorb water as the researchers raised the chamber&rsquo;s temperature from 25 to 50 degrees Celsius.</p><p>&ldquo;At first, we thought we had measured some errors, and thought this could not be possible,&rdquo; Liu says. &ldquo;After we double-checked everything was correct in the experiment, we realized this was really happening, and this is the only known material that shows increasing water absorbing ability with higher temperature.&rdquo;</p><h2><strong>A lucky catch</strong></h2><p>The group zeroed in on PEG to try and identify the reason for its unusual, heat-resilient performance. They found that the material has a natural melting point at around 50 degrees Celsius, meaning that the hydrogel&rsquo;s normally crystal-like microstructure completely breaks down and transforms into an amorphous phase. Zhang says that this melted, amorphous phase provides more opportunity for polymers in the material to grab hold of any fast-moving water molecules.</p><p>&ldquo;In the crystal phase, there might be only a few sites on a polymer available to attract water and bind,&rdquo; Zhang says. &ldquo;But in the amorphous phase, you might have many more sites available. So, the overall performance can increase with increased temperature.&rdquo;</p><p>The team then developed a theory to predict how hydrogels absorb water, and showed that the theory could also explain PEG&rsquo;s unusual behavior if the researchers added a &ldquo;missing term&rdquo; to the theory. That missing term was the effect of phase transformation. They found that when they included this effect, the theory could predict PEG&rsquo;s behavior, along with that of other temperature-limiting hydrogels.</p><p>The discovery of PEG&rsquo;s unique properties was in large part by chance. The material&rsquo;s melting temperature just happens to be within the range where water is a liquid, enabling them to catch PEG&rsquo;s phase transformation and its resulting super-soaking behavior. The other hydrogels happen to have melting temperatures that fall outside this range. But the researchers suspect that these materials are also capable of similar phase transformations once they hit their melting temperatures.</p><p>&ldquo;Other polymers could in theory exhibit this same behavior, if we can engineer their melting points within a selected temperature range,&rdquo; says team member Shaoting Lin.</p><p>Now that the group has worked out a theory, they plan to use it as a blueprint to design materials specifically for capturing water at higher temperatures.</p><p>&ldquo;We want to customize our design to make sure a material can absorb a relatively high amount of water, at low humidity and high temperatures,&rdquo; Liu says. &ldquo;Then it could be used for atmospheric water harvesting, to bring people potable water in hot, arid environments.&rdquo;</p><p>This research was supported, in part, by U.S. Department of Energy&rsquo;s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.</p><hr><p>&quot;Reprinted with permission of&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2023/temperatures-rise-hydrogel-material-keeps-absorbing-moisture-0418" id="isPasted" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MIT News</a>&quot;  &nbsp;</p>

MIT engineers have found that a common hydrogel has unique, super-soaking abilities. Even as temperatures climb, the transparent material continues to absorb moisture, and could serve to harvest water in desert regions, and passively regulate humidity in tropical climates. Image: Felice Frankel