Prof. Gerd Ceder explains his work on faster charge and discharge for batteries to the Washington Post.

A computational approach to materials science and engineering could bring new properties even to familiar substances such as concrete and steel. See the MIT News Office to learn more about computational work being done in DMSE.

The MRS Medal is awarded for a specific outstanding recent discovery or advancement which has a major impact on the progress of a materials-related field. This year’s winner is Gerbrand Ceder, and the award will be presented during the Materials Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston, Dec. 1.

A team of MIT researchers including Profs. Angela Belcher, Gerd Ceder, and Michael Strano of Chemical Engineering have shown they can genetically engineer viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a lithium-ion battery. Angela Belcher holds a display of the virus-built battery she helped engineer. The battery — the silver-colored disc — is being used to power an LED. The new virus-produced batteries have the same energy capacity and power performance as state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries being considered to power plug-in hybrid cars, and they could also be used to power a range of personal electronic devices, said Angela Belcher, the MIT materials scientist who led the research team. The new batteries, described in the April 2 online edition of Science, could be manufactured with a cheap and environmentally benign process: The synthesis takes place at and below room temperature and requires no harmful organic solvents, and the materials that go into the battery are non-toxic. For more details, see the MIT News Office. The story has also been covered by

Green Tech Media

National Geographic

The Korea Times

The BBC

Several DMSE faculty are participating in this upcoming ILP/MPC conference in Stuttgart, on June 2.

The past decade has experienced an enormous global focus on nanotechnology with development of methods for synthesis, modeling and assembly of nanostructures and their early adoption by the electronics and medical fields. The scale of the required replacement and creation of infrastructure, e.g. transportation, energy, housing, offers an historic opportunity to apply those learnings to the development of new materials and processes for sustainable infrastructure development. A team of faculty associated with the Materials Processing Center at MIT will discuss the potential impact of recent nanotechnology and computational advances on infrastructure related materials development including those for aerospace, energy and resource remediation applications.

Introduction: MPC Activities and Visions for The Future
Carl V. Thompson, Stavros V. and Matoula S. Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Director, Materials Processing Center, MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering

The “Materials Genome” Project at MIT: Accelerated and Large-Scale Materials Discovery in the Energy Field
Gerbrand Ceder, Richard P. Simmons (1953) Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering

A New Frontier in Surface Engineering: Nanoscale Materials
Francesco Stellacci, Paul M. Cook Career Development Associate Professor Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Nano-structured Materials for Next Generation Energy Conversion Systems
Harry Tuller, Professor of Ceramics and Electronic Materials, Director, Crystal Physics and Electroceramics Laboratory (CPEL), MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering

If interested and eligible to attend, please contact James Gado at ILP.