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Franz-Josef Ulm presented for the University of Michigan’s “Building the Future” lecture series on September 29. He focused on how carbon-cement supercapacitors could serve as the future of bulk renewable energy storage.

Click to watch.

Randolph Kirchain presented before the Massachusetts State Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change yesterday. His presentation focused on considerations for low-embodied emissions legislation (including the importance of embodied emissions across the life cycle) as well as how to drive supply chain innovation.

Click the link to watch Dr. Kirchain’s presentation, which starts at 4:40 in the video.

Our webinar “As the Drum Turns: Transforming the Role of the Concrete Delivery Professional” is now live on YouTube! During this presentation, Beth Unger, Ph.D. and Elizabeth Moore provided an update on our special project to understand the concrete delivery professional (CDP) shortage and explore ways to boost recruitment and retention.

To secure a more sustainable and resilient future, we must look carefully at the life cycle impacts of humanity’s most-produced building material: concrete. Carbon uptake, the process by which cement-based products sequester carbon dioxide, is key to this understanding.

Hessam AzariJafari, the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub’s deputy director, is deeply invested in studying this process and its acceleration, where prudent. He describes how carbon uptake is key to reaching a carbon-neutral concrete industry. First, What is carbon uptake in cement-based products, and how can it influence their properties?

Read the article.

From story placements in Boston Globe Media and the World Economic Forum to high-profile presentations, it has been an eventful month at the Hub. Click to learn more in our newsletter.

Today, we are celebrating the successful PhD defense of Hub researcher Meshkat Botshekan! Dr. Botshekan presented on “Unveiling Roadway Network Safety: Application of Statistical Physics to Crowdsourced Velocity Data” before his doctoral committee. We look forward to seeing where your research and hard work takes you!

We made “top story” in NEU: An ACI Center of Excellence for Carbon Neutral Concrete’s newsletter! In the highlighted piece, postdoc Damian Stefaniuk explains carbonation in cement-based products and its importance in assessing environmental impacts.

Click to read the story.

In this short video, learn how carbon-cement supercapacitors could serve as a future solution for bulk energy storage, particularly for renewable sources like solar and wind. In their paper in PNAS, researchers from the CSHub and other institutions discuss the potential for this technology to be applied to residential and industrial applications like self-charging roads for electric vehicles and energy autarkic shelters.

Click to watch the video and learn more.

Boston Globe Media features our work on carbon-cement supercapacitors in a new article exploring how the technology could be a bulk energy storage solution for renewable sources like solar. “‘Energy storage is a global problem,’ said Franz-Josef Ulm, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT and one of the creators of the supercapacitor. ‘If we want to curb the environmental footprint, we need to get serious and come up with innovative ideas to reach these goals.'”

Read the article.

In the vast expanse of human history, few materials have shaped our built environment as profoundly as concrete. From towering skyscrapers to sprawling highways, concrete stands as a testament to human ingenuity. Yet, as we stand at the precipice of a climate crisis, the very foundation of our modern world is under scrutiny. Can this age-old material evolve to meet the challenges of the 21st century?

Click to read more.