2024 MCSC Symposium Posters
This is a subset of posters from the Poster Session.
Laurent Liote
Drawing on case studies from the UK Department of Energy, this poster explores the technical and socio-political policy trade-offs that go on behind the scenes. It provides an in-depth picture of how renewable energy policy is made and suggests tips and tricks to engage with policymakers in this space.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Social dimensions
Avni Singhal, Glen Junor, Akachukwu Obi
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Circularity, Carbon capture & storage (CCS), data & computing
Florian Berg, Roberto Rigobon, Esther Kohler
Voluntary carbon markets are predicted to play a crucial role in global efforts to reach Net Zero. However, recent evidence points to major flaws in current market practices. A particular issue is the missing additionality of many carbon offset projects. In this project, we will generate a unique database of carbon offset projects to develop metrics to detect failures in current additionality assessment practices. We will also use our insights to develop recommendations on how to improve these practices, in collaboration with industry experts and with a focus on natural sink projects.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Climate finance
Edmond Lam, Shreya Agarwal, Christopher Hom, Saurabh Nath, Kripa Varanasi
Biodegradable packaging inspired by the structure of fruit peels as a platform to tailor for permeability requirements and other functional properties.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Circularity, Nature-based solutions
Yuan Shi, Karen Yanchong Zheng, Joann de Zegher
Our study examines incentive schemes to promote sustainable practices among smallholder farmers in the upstream supply chain through offsetting and insetting mechanisms. Using conceptual models and field-based farmer engagement, we show that insetting contracts, designed to link payments to both sustainability compliance and production volume, can achieve higher levels of supply chain sustainability than offsetting contracts of equal cost.
Related MCCSC Impact Areas: Value chain resilience, Nature-based solutions, Social dimensions
Alexis Hocken, Mario Zamora, Bradley D. Olsen
Mechanical recycling of plastics is often hindered by contaminants like additives and multi-material components, which complicate the recovery of pure plastic streams. Sorting plastics by brand could allow manufacturers to buy back their own post-consumer products to be used in new products. This project aims to develop a machine learning model that uses image recognition to identify post-consumer plastics by brand, potentially improving recycling rates.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Circularity
Danika MacDonell, Micah Borrero, Helena De Figueiredo Valente, Brilant Kasami
This poster shares the journey of creating an interactive geospatial decision support tool in close collaboration with industry and academic partners of the MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium. The tool leverages comprehensive public data on freight flows, costs, emissions, infrastructure, and regulatory incentives. Integrating key insights and methodologies from our partners, it aims to assist trucking industry stakeholders in identifying and assessing strategies to transition fleets to low-carbon energy carriers.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Tough transportation modes
Leela Velautham
As the commitment to sustainability and corresponding structures and practices evolve in an institution, so do the authority and responsibilities for those charged with implementing sustainability efforts. In this research, I study the evolving role of the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO), both across industry and higher education.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Social dimensions
Michelle Westerlaken
Environmental future scenarios are often seen as fixed paths that go from point A to point B. However, the future is far from linear. This poster invites participants to additively reimagine the Global Biodiversity Framework to create new proposals and dialogues around diverse biodiversity futures – whether they are possible, preferable, or even preposterous.
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Nature-based solutions, Social dimensions
Mary Kate Lane
We examine the process of advanced recycling in the context of plastic waste circularity, using Shakespearean wisdom to navigate its promises and pitfalls. Advanced recycling, or the process of breaking plastics down to smaller chemical constituents for reuse, may offer a path to sustainability—but only in certain contexts. With the guiding words, “Assume thy part in some disguise”, we will explore the current controversies surrounding advanced recycling. We open the discussion to how advanced recycling might contribute to a more sustainable future if implemented correctly and with transparency and integrity.
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Circularity
Sean Lo, Alexandre Jacquillat
Logistics electrification require investments in charging infrastructure along highways and decision tools to support the routing of operations in electrified networks. This poster presents an electric routing-scheduling problem that jointly optimizes routing and charging decisions in logistics networks, and develops an optimization algorithm to solve it efficiently in large instances. Results demonstrate the practical impact of the methodology, with significant cost reductions as compared to business-as-usual solutions. This research can support the ongoing transition toward large-scale electrification in logistics fleets.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Tough transportation modes
Amanda Bischoff, Christopher Voigt
Nitrate is a primary component of fertilizer that increases crop yields but contributes to nitrous oxide emissions and eutrophication. Reducing these effects requires scalable measurement tools for nitrate and other nitrogen compounds in soil. We have engineered soil bacteria to detect nitrate at agriculturally relevant concentrations and produce reporter molecules with the potential to be monitored through remote imaging.
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Nature-based solutions
Bram van der Kroft
Sustainable Engagement is critical in shifting firms sustainable performance. In this poster session, I will explain my research on this area and show how firms can best engage with their investors.
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Climate Finance
Matea Gjika, Georgia Perakis, Talia Tamarin-Brodsky
This project aims to develop a methodology for assessing the impact of weather on retail sales over varying time frames. The first phase focuses on short-term effects by modelling sales based on different weather states across geographic regions, while the second phase examines medium-term effects, including sustained, volatile, and atypical weather patterns. The final phase predicts the long-term impact of climate change on sales, helping retailers like Inditex optimize product ranges and prepare for climate-related challenges.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Climate Finance
Ariel Furst, Melanie Gut, Ben D Burke
Agrochemicals have enabled us to feed the growing population, but the production of ammonia alone causes nearly 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Native soil microbes can produce all of the chemicals we currently deliver as fertilizers. We enable the use of these microbes in place of agrochemicals, improving germination and supporting soil health through accelerated weathering.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Nature-based solutions, Carbon capture & storage (CCS)
M.Reza Alizadeh, Koko Kummel, Dara Entekhabi, Daniel J Short Gianotti
Aquifers are widely used in irrigated agriculture for food production. These subsurface natural reservoirs are tapped into by pumping wells that withdraw water for irrigation. The aquifers are replenished with the recharge hydrologic flux which is the vertical flow of water in the near surface soil where precipitation enters the soil. Thus, the natural rate of recharge flux is indeed the sustainable rate of groundwater use. Important as this flux is, there are no systematic mapping of it. There are no in situ instruments that can be widely deployed to map recharge. Isotopes of water are often used to estimate recharge at a field site. But this approach is expensive and labor intensive. Currently aquifers around the world are being woefully over-exploited. To manage and restore them, we need mapped estimates of recharge. This project aims to provide a global groundwater recharge maps using NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite data. Our approach combines satellite measurements with precipitation data and land surface models to develop reliable methods for estimating groundwater recharge globally. This research will provide insights and tools for sustainable groundwater management, supporting effective policy-making and strategic planning to ensure water security in the face of climate change.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Nature-based solutions, Data & computing, Social dimensions
Akachukwu Obi, Fang-Yu Kuo, Avni Singhal, Priyanka Raghavan, Oscar Wu, Liz Moore, Glen Junor
This poster will summarize CCS efforts at the MCSC
Related MCSC Impact Area: Carbon capture & storage (CCS)
Liying Qiu, Michael Howland
Climate projections carry significant uncertainty, yet decarbonizing energy systems requires making investment decisions that carefully balance cost with resilience to future conditions. In this work, we introduce methods for uncertainty-aware optimization in renewable siting, designed to enhance system resilience to climate change—particularly to extreme events—while minimizing costs.
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Value chain resilience
Noah McMillion, Akachukwu Obi, Robert Gilliard
Main-group compounds are more cost effective relative to their transition metal counterparts while offering unique mechanisms to access unusual carbon dioxide-derived products containing multiple carbon atoms. In this work, the simplest multiple carbon product derived from carbon dioxide, oxalate, is targeted via electrochemical reactivity using a system of nucleophilic carbenes and electrophilic boron-based Lewis acids. Systemic variations result in changes to carbon dioxide reactivity as assessed by cyclic voltammetry, providing insight into factors to tune the desired reactivity.
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Carbon capture & storage (CCS)
Natalie Mamrol, Phoebe J. Weil, Katharina A. Fransen, Gabrielle F. Godbille-Cardona, Alex M. Zappi , Gregory C. Rutledge, and Bradley D. Olsen
For synthetic fibers, replacing PET with bio-based furanoate polyesters can reduce GHG emissions by using a plant-based feedstock and even decrease pollution. This work aims to develop high throughput screening techniques and establish criteria to identify promising furanoate polyester compositions for sustainable fiber applications.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Circularity, Nature-based solutions
Xiaoyue Zhang, Jing Li, Mert Demirer
We study the heterogeneity in the synergy between pollution reduction and productivity improvement among US power plants and why there is heterogeneity. Our results will help understand the cost of pollution abatement and design optimal environmental regulations.
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Social dimensions
Peter Hodge, Miho Mazereeuw, Aditya Barve, Mayank Ojha, Eakapob Huangthanapan, Pimpakarn Rattanathumawat, Rutvik Deshpande
Copin is a new software developed by MIT’s Urban Risk Lab with the goal of strengthening climate resilience throughout Southeast Asia by efficiently connecting smaller communities to the resources of larger institutions. By combining local knowledge with digital mapping tools, Copin enables communities to document their climate risks, key assets, and adaptation opportunities—data that will guide and improve both local and top-down support.
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Value chain resilience, Data & computing, Social dimensions, Climate finance
Katie Daehn, Gen Kamimura, Antoine Allanore
Mixed aluminum scrap is typically down-cycled. Here we develop a high-throughput method based on sulfur gas to selectively react with the alloying elements present, allowing for optical sorting and alloy-to-alloy recycling.
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Circularity
Kwangwook Ko, Jeremiah A. Johnson
We describe the development and utilization of cleavable comonomers as ‘drop-in’ additives that can be seamlessly integrated into existing plastic manufacturing processes to produce deconstructable and recyclable variants. We present strategies for both the development of these additives and their application in chemical recycling, which are broadly applicable to a wide range of commonly used industrial polymeric products.
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Circularity
Kanokwan Tungkitkancharoen, Alexander Siemenn, Basita Das, Fang Sheng, Eunice Aissi, Hamide Kavak, Tonio Buonassisi
This research focuses on validating automated synthesis processes for perovskite materials, which hold significant potential in sustainable energy applications. Utilizing the DiSCO (Discovery, Synthesis, Characterization, and Optimization) tool, it addresses inefficiencies in traditional manual methods by ensuring high-throughput and reproducible results. The study aims to establish DiSCO as a reliable platform for accelerating the discovery of renewable energy materials, advancing scalable solutions to meet the urgent demand for clean energy.
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Nature-based solutions
Priyanka Raghavan, Wenhao Gao, Akachukwu Obi, Connor Coley, Natasha Videcrantz Faurschou
Computational screening shows that ylides, and in particular guanidines, show potential as carbon capture materials. The scaffold and sidechain can both be tuned, with their identity affecting important properties such as binding energy, viscosity, and solubility. However, the design space of guanidines is large, and routine experimental synthesis and evaluation of these molecules is intractable.
Chemistry automation has emerged in recent years as a promising option for high-throughput reaction tasks. In the Coley Group, our in-house automation platform consists of a liquid handler and UPLC/MS system for small to medium-scale batch synthesis and screening. Using this platform, we aim to synthesize a diverse library of guanidines for further testing, focusing on the validation and adaptation of their synthetic pathways for automation across various scaffolds and sidechains. Initial results show success in the small-scale synthesis of guanidines using a commercially-available scaffold and 10 amines that cover the broad space of buyable primary amines. This represents an encouraging first step for the synthesis of a large range of guanidines.
Related MCSC Impact Areas: Carbon capture & storage (CCS), Data & computing
Hessam Azarijafari, Soroush Mahjoubi, Randolph Kirchain
Every week, there are news stories about technologies that promise to reduce GHG emissions from cement-based product structures drastically. Unfortunately, real-world constraints will prevent most of these technologies from being deployed at scale. This project will provide the knowledge and tools for MCSC members to benchmark their current construction-related embodied carbon status, understand the existing and emerging strategies to reduce that carbon, and to identify the scalable low-carbon cement-based product solutions most suited to their application and context.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Value chain resilience, Circularity, Climate finance
Akorfa Dagadu, Tianyi Jin, Alfredo Alexander-Katz
This work explores the potential of nano-dispersed enzymes, stabilized by methacrylate-based random heteropolymers (RHPs), to accelerate the degradation of biodegradable plastics, offering a promising solution to plastic pollution. Using atomistic molecular dynamics simulations and machine learning, we investigate the interactions between Proteinase K and RHPs, focusing on how different polymer morphologies—such as polymer-enzyme dimers and wrapped polymers—affect enzyme stability and activity. Our findings reveal key insights into the enzyme-polymer interface, which are critical for future advancements in material design and enzymatic plastic degradation.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Circularity
Julia Casey, Katharina Fransen, Alex Zappi, Natalie Mamrol, Gabrielle Godbille-Cardona, Bradley Olsen
Polymers have ubiquitous use in modern life, however the majority of polymers ever produced have been discarded leading to accumulation in landfills or the environment, or incineration. The development of new polymer materials to satisfy existing and growing demand and applications must focus on sustainably sourced materials which can be mechanically recycled or biodegraded. This project focuses on novel terpolymer materials synthesized with either dimethyl terephthalate or dimethyl isophthalate and analyzes the results of biodegradability testing in comparison to a previous binary copolymer library.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Circularity, Nature-based solutions
Stephen Hart, Carolina Bastidas, Janelle Knox-Hayes, Jean-Luc Pierite, Leslie Jonas, John Walkey
Research project building TEK-STEAM convergence by weaving together the knowledge of different STEAM disciplines and by recognizing and integrating the unique scientific value of Indigenous knowledge (IK) and ecological practices. The project aims to build a collaborative network between academic, community, and policy groups across Massachusetts to mainstream TEK-STEAM knowledge to improve equitable sustainability and adaptation outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.
Related MCSC Impact Area: Nature-based solutions, Social dimensions
