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Decarbonizing Industry Lightning Talks
Envisioning Commercial Air Transportation With Near-Zero Environmental Impacts
Florian Allroggen
Executive Director, MIT Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment
Senior Strategic Advisor, MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

To meet ambitious environmental goals while continuing to connect the world, the air transportation sector needs to increase the level of ambition in mitigating its environmental impacts. In this talk, Dr. Allroggen outlines what an air transportation system with near-zero impact on global warming and air pollution could look like. For this purpose, he first provides a strategic perspective on the key impacts which need to be mitigated to meet near-zero goals. He then connects such mitigation measures to new technologies and operational measures which will target the most significant impacts. The analysis concludes by providing insights into the technical feasibility and economic viability of the resulting air transportation system which can achieve near-zero environmental impacts.

Sustainable Steel
Cem Tasan
POSCO Professor of Metallurgy, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Solid state consolidation has tremendous potential for steel making from steel scrap, without remelting. In this talk, the scientific fundamentals and engineering solutions associated with a particular process invented at MIT will be introduced, focusing on the successful examples of several different ferrous and non-ferrous alloys.

Design and Computational Strategies for Reusable Building Components
Caitlin Mueller
Associate Professor, MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering
Associate Professor, MIT Architecture

New computational design and digital fabrication methods for innovative, high-performance buildings and structures will enable a more sustainable and equitable future. By focusing on the creative interface of architecture, structural engineering, and computation, Prof. Mueller’s research group has developed strategies for unconventional material use in building structures.

This presentation will focus on algorithmic design approaches, such as those incorporating underutilized wood sources and reassembleable concrete parts. The PixelFrame system, for example, targets circularity strategies for reducing the material footprint of concrete. Connections are dry-jointed, avoiding the use of grout or mortar. The conventionally fused assembly of steel and concrete is separated, allowing each material to respond independently to tensile and compressive forces without impeding the longevity or function of the other. Through structural element reuse, PixelFrame can achieve more than 50% embodied carbon savings up-front.

Sustainable Transportation: Low Carbon Trucking
Sayandeep Biswas
PhD Graduate Student, MIT

Hydrogen is a promising fuel to drive the decarbonization of long-haul trucking. However, the high cost of distribution as a compressed gas or cryogenic liquid has stunted its wide-scale adoption. Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (LOHCs) can be a cost-competitive option but have inefficiencies from endothermic dehydrogenation and compression needs. We are building a novel powertrain system to mitigate these drawbacks and establish LOHC as a cost-competitive diesel alternative.