Basic Energy Science

Research at the atomic and molecular levels, providing the scientific underpinnings for new energy technologies

Image from Making electricity with photovoltaics, Energy Futures, Spring 2011 Credit: Justin Knight

Research

Understanding how plants use sunlight

Possible pathway to more biomass and crops

Fabrication of new materials

Designing “recipes” using artificial intelligence

Converting greenhouse gas into fuel

New catalyst provides design principles for producing fuels from carbon dioxide emissions

Novel metallic gels that fluoresce

Color-coded sensors with a range of energy applications

Thermophotovoltaics

Enabling efficient energy generation

Batteryless energy harvester

Running electronics on body heat

Publications

Stress Transmission and Failure in Disordered Porous Media

August 2017

Roland Pellenq, Franz-Josef Ulm

Tuning of Silver Catalyst Mesostructure Promotes Selective Carbon Dioxide Conversion into Fuels

November 2016

Yogesh Surendranath

A high-resolution and large force-range load cell by means of nonlinear cantilever beams

January 2016

Themistoklis Sapsis, Alexander Slocum

News

3Q: Improving solar cells

Michael Wasielewski on molecular approaches to solar energy conversion

Understanding how plants use sunlight

Possible pathway to more biomass and crops

3Q: Howard J. Herzog discusses the state of carbon capture

People

Antoine Allanore Assistant Professor

Materials Science and Engineering

Robert Armstrong Director

MIT Energy Initiative

Karl Berggren Professor

Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Daniel Blankschtein Professor

Chemical Engineering

Richard Braatz Professor

Chemical Engineering

Fikile Brushett Assistant Professor

Chemical Engineering

Jianshu Cao Professor

Chemistry

Sylvia Ceyer Professor

Chemistry

Robert Cohen Associate Director and Professor

Chemical Engineering

Charles Cooney Professor

Chemical Engineering

Erik Demaine Professor

Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Laurent Demanet Professor

Mathematics

Gerald Fink Professor

Biology

Dennis Frenchman Professor

Urban Studies & Planning

Nuh Gedik Associate Professor

Physics

Ahmed Ghoniem Professor

Mechanical Engineering

Rafael Gomez-Bombarelli

Materials Science and Engineering

Stefanie Jegelka

Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence; Electrical Engineering & Computer Science; Institute for Data, Systems, and Society

Klavs Jensen Professor

Chemical Engineering

Jeremiah Johnson Assistant Professor

Chemistry

Ruben Juanes Associate Professor

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Heather Kulik Assistant Professor

Chemical Engineering

Karthish Manthiram Assistant Professor

Chemical Engineering

Youssef Marzouk Associate Professor

Aeronautics and Astronautics

Tomás Palacios Professor

Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Caroline Ross Professor

Materials Science and Engineering

Gregory Rutledge Professor

Chemical Engineering

Donald Sadoway Professor

Materials Science and Engineering

Gabriela Schlau-Cohen Assistant Professor

Chemistry

Zachary Smith Assistant Professor

Chemical Engineering

Zoltan Spakovszky Professor

Aeronautics and Astronautics

Yogesh Surendranath Assistant Professor

Chemistry

Troy Van Voorhis Professor

Chemistry

Nicholas Xuanlai Fang Associate Professor

Mechanical Engineering