Materials science and engineering

One of the most synthesized plastics, PET — found in plastic bottles — exhibits an extremely low degradation rate and its production is highly dependent on petroleum feedstocks. New research on the biodegradation of plastics will be funded by a MIT Energy Initiative Seed Fund.

MIT Energy Initiative awards seven Seed Fund grants for early-stage energy research

Annual MITEI awards support research on methane conversion, efficient energy provision, plastics recycling, and more.

July 1, 2019

A domain wall (gray panel at center) separates regions with different spin orientations (green and blue arrows). MIT researchers discovered that a magnetic field applied at one particular angle through a single crystal of a new magnetic quantum material makes it harder for electrons to cross this domain wall.

Approaching the magnetic singularity

MIT researchers discover a material that changes electrical resistance only when a magnetic field is applied at a narrowly confined angle.

June 20, 2019

MIT engineers 3-D-print stretchy mesh, with customized patterns designed to be flexible yet strong, for use in ankle and knee braces.

Engineers 3-D print flexible mesh for ankle and knee braces

Techniques could lead to personalized wearable and implantable devices.

June 19, 2019

QS ranks MIT the world’s No. 1 university for 2019-20

Ranked at the top for the eighth straight year, the Institute also places first in 11 of 48 disciplines.

June 18, 2019

Image taken using the MIT researchers' system shows the fibers of the filter membrane in red, and the oily droplets accumulating on it in green. The colors results from fluorescent dyes added to the materials.

Getting the oil out of water

New technique makes it possible to image the fouling of membranes in 3-D, could lead to better antifouling materials.

June 9, 2019

$Diagram depicts the sequence of steps used in the new streamlined process to synthesize perovskite-based materials, deposit them on a substrate to create a thin film, and then analyze the film’s characteristics using X-ray diffraction and other observational methods. The new process is about ten times faster than previous methods.$

How to speed up the discovery of new solar cell materials

Streamlined system for creating and analyzing perovskite compounds may cut development time from 20 years to two.

June 5, 2019

The MIT School of Engineering newly tenured faculty are: (first row, left to right) Amos Winter, Kerri Cahoy, Antoine Allanore, R. Scott Kemp, Juejun Hu, Emilio Baglietto, Virginia Vassilevska Williams, Aleksander Mądry, and Julie Shah. (second row, left to right) William Tisdale, Paul Blainey, Themistoklis Sapsis, Frances Ross, Sertac Karaman, Hadley Sikes, Saurabh Amin, and Daniel Sanchez.

The tenured engineers of 2019

Seventeen appointments have been made in eight departments within the School of Engineering.

June 4, 2019

An artistic impression depicts ultra-quantum matter: from the cold topological matter (blue) to hot, strongly correlated metal (red).

Ultra-Quantum Matter research gets $8 million boost

MIT’s Senthil Todadri and Xiao-Gang Wen will study highly entangled quantum matter in a collaboration supported by the Simons Foundation.

May 29, 2019

Sodium-containing compounds, such as those found in common household ingredients like detergent, baking soda, and table salt, are surprisingly effective ingredients for cooking up carbon nanotubes, new MIT study finds.

Pantry ingredients can help grow carbon nanotubes

Study finds baking soda, detergent, and table salt — all rich in sodium — are effective catalysts.

May 28, 2019

Yet-Ming Chiang, Kyocera Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

3Q: Yet-Ming Chiang on reopening the case of cold fusion

The materials science and engineering professor is part of a multi-institution effort to investigate the possibility of cold fusion in a scientifically rigorous way.

May 27, 2019