News & Updates

Manipulating materials at a fundamental level, Ju Li reveals new properties for energy applications.

MIT.nano received a Boston Society of Architects (BSA) 2020 Honor Award for Design Excellence. Jury comments on MIT.nano receiving this award: "MIT.nano is a serious project. A complex lab building placed onto a tight site, this is an elegant piece of infill, subtly enhancing its urban neighborhood. On the interior, MIT.nano packs in a great deal of program, including comfortable and compelling laboratories and collaborative social spaces. Impressively, the project is the first of its kind to be LEED Platinum certified."

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New design could speed reaction rates in electrochemical systems for pulling carbon out of power plant emissions.

Self-assembly of Kevlar-inspired molecules leads to structures with robust properties, offering new materials for solid-state applications.

Nanosatellite thrusters that emit a stream of pure ions are the first of their kind to be entirely additively manufactured, using a combination of 3D printing and hydrothermal growth of zinc oxide nanowires. A stainless steel version works better overall, but is much more expensive to produce. MIT researchers found that a polymer version yields comparable performance at a lower cost.

Read more at MIT News.

Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, Aviv Regev, Susan Solomon, and Feng Zhang are the recipients of distinguished awards for major contributions to science.

Read more at MIT News.

MIT researchers have proposed a method to grow plant-based materials, like wood and fiber, and have demonstrated the concept by growing a culture of wood-like cells from zinnia leaves.

This research was funded, in part, by the Draper Fellow Program. Ashley Beckwith, a PhD student in mechanical engineering, is the lead author. Coauthors are Beckwith’s co-advisors Velásquez-García, a principal scientist in MIT’s Microsystems technology Laboratories, and Jeffrey Borenstein, a biomedical engineer at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.

Read more at MIT News.

Researchers using MIT.nano's facilities show a small-molecule platform, the aramid amphiphile, that overcomes dynamic instabilities by incorporating a Kevlar-inspired domain into the molecular structure. Read about their work in Nature Nanotechnology.

The IDEAS Social Innovation Challenge is MIT’s 20 -year old annual social entrepreneurship program housed in the PKG Public Service Center. Since its founding in 2001, IDEAS has enabled MIT student-led teams to apply their education and expertise in collaboration with community partners to address social and environmental challenges around the world. Through this program, you can recruit a team from anywhere in the world and develop a creative solution in partnership with impacted stakeholders. Your team can also benefit from a supportive body of reviewers, mentors, and funding within the range of $1,000 – $20,000.

Applications due January 24, 2021.