Left: A Marietta electrical substation was used for testing the GridTrust system. Right: The Georgia Tech research team is shown in the Marietta substation yard with collaborators from the city of Marietta. (Credit: City of Marietta)
A new cybersecurity technology that relies on the unique digital fingerprint of individual semiconductor chips could help protect the equipment of electrical utilities from malicious attacks that exploit software updates on devices controlling the critical infrastructure.
The GridTrust project, which has been successfully tested in a real substation of a U.S. municipal power system, combines the digital fingerprint with cryptographic technology to provide enhanced security for the utilities and other critical industrial systems that must update control device software or firmware.
Led by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in collaboration with the City of Marietta, Georgia, the project was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER). GridTrust also included researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and Protect Our Power, a security-focused not-for-profit organization. The three-year, $3 million project began in 2021.
“The security of updates applied to equipment is critical to maintaining operation of the nation’s electricity grid,” said Santiago Grijalva, the project’s principal investigator and Southern Company Distinguished Professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “We have demonstrated that GridTrust can block direct cyber-attacks through the equipment supply chain in multiple configurations and scenarios, while also preventing a whole array of potential errors. What we have developed and demonstrated will provide multiple layers of additional security to the existing electricity grid.”
The project focused on power system controllers, including sensors, actuators, and protection relays that are normally located in power substations distributed throughout a utility’s service area. Malicious actors may attempt to alter the software controlling the devices to, for instance, turn off power or damage the equipment. The attacks could take place if technicians attempt to use corrupted software to make updates at utility substations or other facilities.
Installed as part of the substation equipment, GridTrust would verify the authenticity of the software before any updates were installed, and it would ensure that the software was being applied to the correct device – by a person authorized to do so. In addition to cryptographic technologies, the system uses a new form of security based on unique physically unclonable functions (PUFs) that exist in certain semiconductor chips. PUFs are a set of unique characteristics created by minor variations that occur during chip fabrication.
“The PUF relies on random behavior based on variations in the manufacturing process, and they cannot be changed after fabrication,” said Vincent Mooney, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “During an update, the GridTrust interfacing device first proves its identity using the PUF, then it verifies both utility and vendor signatures using their public RSA keys. Only if all these checks are passed will the firmware update be successfully installed. If the update isn’t installed, the device will continue to operate with its previous firmware version, and the utility’s network operations center will be notified to investigate.”
The GridTrust technology can operate as a standalone device with existing utility equipment or be built into new devices. Utility sensors, actuators, relays and similar control devices are currently produced by multiple manufacturers, and the Georgia Tech researchers have been in contact with an existing supplier that is interested in incorporating the technology, Grijalva said.
Initial testing of the GridTrust system took place in Georgia Tech laboratories, then researchers worked with technical staff at the city of Marietta to evaluate the system in one of the utility’s substations. Located northwest of Atlanta, Marietta’s power network serves approximately 42,000 customers, including several critical electrical loads. The testing was done in a substation circuit isolated from the grid to ensure that the research activity would not affect customers.
“When Georgia Tech approached us about participating in an operational technology security research project, we were excited to participate, especially considering that our mayor and city manager have always supported working with state and local universities to develop new programs and technologies to solve real-world challenges,” said Ronald Barrett, Director of Information Technology for Marietta.
As part of the testing, Grijalva and Mooney involved “red team” cybersecurity researchers from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), Georgia Tech’s applied research organization. GTRI researchers Trevor Lewis, David Huggins, Sam Litchfield, and Matt Guinn led an effort to challenge the GridTrust system with sophisticated attempts to install software that simulated the kind of potential malware that could affect utility equipment.
“They pretended to be black-hat hackers who wanted to compromise the system by pushing a malicious configuration file to one of the devices or initiating a firmware update without being authorized to do that,” said Huggins, a GTRI senior research engineer. “They had several attack methods and strategies aimed at multiple components of the system – and were not successful.”
Such third-party validation is important to a broad range of systems, noted Lewis, a senior research engineer who participates in “red team” test scenarios for many critical systems. “We are routinely contracted to perform assessments on a variety of system architectures to emulate the actions of real cyber attackers, and to test and evaluate the security of all components within an architecture under test,” he said.
While there are multiple manufacturers of equipment for the utility industry, the devices provide similar functions and have similar needs for periodic updating. The protection system developed by Georgia Tech should be broadly applicable to devices produced by different manufacturers, and could therefore have broad application to the utility industry.
“Georgia Tech is creating technology that makes energy delivery systems safer, and protecting that critical infrastructure is important for national security,” Huggins said. “Reliable electrical power is critical to every aspect of our society today.”
In addition to ensuring the safety of device updates, the GridTrust system will also help utilities inventory the software operating on substation devices. Large utility companies can have hundreds or thousands of substations in their service areas, each with dozens of devices that may need periodic updates.
The three-year GridTrust project is now moving into the commercialization phase where it could be licensed to manufacturers or spun off into a start-up company, Grijalva said. For utilities like Marietta Power that want to be on the cutting edge of cybersecurity, that comes as welcome news.
“We believe the work that Georgia Tech has done is critical to maintaining a safe and secure electrical grid,” said Eric Patten, Marietta Power’s electrical director. “Our goal for this project was to see a system that added another layer of security from attacks, and from what we have seen, we believe this was a success.”
Writer: John Toon (john.toon@gtri.gatech.edu)
GTRI Communications
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Atlanta, Georgia USA
The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Founded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 2,800 employees supporting eight laboratories in over 20 locations around the country and performing more than $800 million of problem-solving research annually for government and industry. GTRI's renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, state, and industry.
Left: The physically unclonable functions (PUF) of a semiconductor chip help create the cybersecurity for the GridTrust system. Right: A “red team” from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) tested the GridTrust system’s ability to protect substation devices from cyberattack. (Credit: City of Marietta)
(Interim) Director of Communications
Michelle Gowdy
Michelle.Gowdy@gtri.gatech.edu
404-407-8060
Exterior of the Hinman Research Building on the Georgia Tech main campus.
Three of 12 projects that received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Using the Rules of Life to Address Societal Challenges are led by researchers in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE).
The 12 projects received a total of $27 million in investment, supporting the use of knowledge learned from studying the Rules of Life — the complex interactions within and between a broad array of living systems across biological scales, and time and space — to tackle pressing societal challenges, including clean water, planet sustainability, carbon capture, biosecurity, and antimicrobial resistance to antibiotics. The Georgia Tech-related projects received a total of $7.7 million.
"The enormous opportunity to apply biological principles to solving the biggest problems of today is one we cannot take lightly," said Susan Marqusee, NSF assistant director for Biological Sciences. "These projects will use life to improve life, including for many underprivileged communities and groups."
The Georgia Tech-led projects include:
The project’s principal investigator is Lily Cheung, assistant professor of ChBE@GT, and the co-principal investigators are Shuichi Takayama, professor of biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech, and William San Martín, assistant professor of global environmental science, technology, and governance at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
The researchers will address food security through low-cost technology based on biological principles to increase nitrogen content in soils and improve crop production on marginal lands.
The project’s principal investigator is Corey Wilson, professor of ChBE@GT, and the co-principal investigators are Matthew Realff, professor of ChBE@GT, and Christopher Voigt, professor of biological engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The researchers will create programmable, biological combination lock methods — "on and off" states — for using synthetic biology safely, containing potentially dangerous organisms and protecting valuable ones.
The project’s principal investigator is Mark Styczynski, professor of ChBE@GT, and the co-principal investigators are Shuichi Takayama, professor of biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech; Brian Hammer, associate professor of biological sciences at Georgia Tech, and Neha Garg, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Georgia Tech.
The researchers will create synthetic "protocells" enabling the development of a highly sensitive, field deployable analysis system that could be used for many applications such as measuring micronutrient deficiencies in undernourished populations.
Assistant Professor Lily Cheung
Professor Mark Styczynski
Professor Corey Wilson
Brad Dixon, braddixon@gatech.edu
Photo graphic that includes headshots of the seven-member research team.
The IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics (TPEL) First Place Prize Paper Award has been awarded to a team of researchers in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) led by Professor Deepakraj M. Divan. TPEL is renowned for its influence in the power electronics field.
In addition to Divan, the researchers include:
The team's prize-winning paper titled, "7.2 kV Three-Port SiC Single-Stage Current-Source Solid-State Transformer With 90 kV Lightning Protection," proposes a new type of power transformer called a multiport modular single-stage current-source solid-state transformer (SST).
Unlike traditional transformers, it operates at high voltage (up to 7.5 kV) and performs direct AC to DC or AC to AC conversion in just one stage. The design includes a buffer port for improved power management and energy storage integration. Innovative insulation and lightning protection measures ensure safety and reliability, while a soft-switching technique reduces electromagnetic interference.
These advanced transformers address the increasing prevalence of renewable energy sources and electric vehicles in power grids, offering enhanced flexibility and control over electricity flow compared to traditional transformers.
The Prize Paper Award distinction is a high honor and a tribute to the fine research quality, presentation, and potential impact that the research has to the field, according to TPEL. The publication’s rigorous selection process requires multiple review levels and votes. Each year, up to five first-place prize papers and ten second-place prize papers are deemed best among those published in the preceding calendar year. In 2022, 1,292 regular papers, letters, and correspondence were published from 3,186 original submissions.
The team will be honored at the TPEL Editorial Board Meeting during the 2023 IEEE Energy Conversion Conference and Expo in Nashville, Tennessee on November 1.
Dan Watson
Earlier this year, Georgia Tech was chosen as a core partner of the New York Climate Exchange – a first-of-its-kind international center for the rapid development of urban climate solutions
Stockpile stewardship — safeguarding and maintaining nuclear defense materials using modern techniques — is a critical mission of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Maintaining and expanding the necessary physical and human capabilities to complete this mission is driving renewed investments into nuclear science and engineering.
Georgia Tech researchers were recently awarded $11.6 million from the NNSA to address this growing need — and to study and expand on existing models of transuranic chemistry, a branch of chemistry dedicated to studying elements with atomic numbers greater than that of uranium.
Led by School of Chemistry and Biochemistry Associate Professor Henry “Pete” La Pierre, the funding will serve to establish the Transuranic Chemistry Center of Excellence. Directed by La Pierre, the Center will house a collaborative network of five other universities and six national laboratories across the United States conducting both theoretical and applied research.
“Scientifically, actinides and transuranic elements present unique challenges to existing models of chemical bonding,” explains La Pierre. These elements are man-made radioactive metals, many of which are not available in large quantities. “There are amazing open-ended questions that are fundamental to our understanding of chemical bonding and activities, that serve to transform our knowledge of how the elements form bonds across the Periodic Table.”
Joining seven other universities, this funding comes to Georgia Tech as part of NNSA’s $100 million program establishing Stewardship Science Academic Alliances Centers of Excellence. A main goal of this program is to recruit, train, and educate the next generation of researchers in nuclear science and engineering.
“These cooperative agreements will allow NNSA to train the smartest and most skilled individuals while creating a direct pathway into our workforce with a diverse group of experts that can meet the evolving needs of the nuclear security enterprise,” said Kevin Greenaugh, Chief Science and Technology Officer for Defense Programs, in a recent press release.
“The science and engineering collaboration of this center is a true synergy,” says Martha Grover, professor and associate chair for Graduate Studies in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and one of the collaborators for the Center. Anna Erickson, Woodruff Professor and associate chair for Research in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, is another Georgia Tech collaborator. “This center provides a new example of the growing prominence of Georgia Tech in the nuclear field.”
“We are at core a synthetic inorganic chemistry group, which means we make new molecules and characterize them,” La Pierre explained. In his research as part of the Center, La Pierre will “be handling both radioactive and chemically reactive species to make new forms of matter.”
Characterizing new forms of matter is no easy task, requiring advanced techniques that allow scientists to envision and measure the properties of chemical bonds. Exposing the molecules to X-rays or neutrons and measuring how they scatter or diffract (depending on the experimental design), gives researchers insights into the chemical bonds that are formed.
Using a combination of these advanced techniques as well as theoretical models, La Pierre and the collaborators of the Center will be creating new molecules out of actinides and lanthanides — metallic elements on the bottom of the periodic table — and studying the details of their structures and behavior during chemical reactions. As these elements are not found naturally, the structures and properties of many of these compounds have never been studied before.
“We are creating systems that challenge existing bonding models, which we then have to go back and build new theoretical techniques in order to understand what we're seeing,” La Pierre explained. “So, this does push the forefront of our understanding of basic chemical model systems.”
To push those boundaries, scientists and engineers will be working together across the country — led by Georgia Tech.
“There are so many faculty at Georgia Tech working in nuclear science and technology,” says Grover. “This center gives me the opportunity to collaborate with Prof. La Pierre and Erickson for the first time, in the area of flow chemistry and separations.”
“I'm looking forward to working with some incredibly talented colleagues whom I don't normally get a chance to work with,” says La Pierre. “And now we have the opportunity to work together every week with fantastic students that I would never have met otherwise. That's the main draw for me.”
Writer: Audra Davidson
Communications Officer II, College of Sciences
Editor: Jess Hunt-Ralston
Director of Communications, College of Sciences
The 2023 Energy Faculty Fellows with their Georgia Tech Hosts
This summer, the Strategic Energy Institute’s Energy Faculty Fellow program (EFF) brought three faculty and two undergraduate students to the Georgia Tech campus. The 10-week program has been designed for Georgia Tech faculty to host a faculty member from a primarily undergraduate or minority serving Institution to engage with energy leaders, build networks, and pursue research collaborations in the energy space. Ongoing goals are to continue research collaborations well beyond this summer, with faculty and students carrying research efforts to their home institutions and into the new academic year. The Strategic Energy Institute anticipates a pipeline between the institutions, where the EFF participants encourage their colleagues to engage with Georgia Tech in future cohorts, call on each other for collaborations on federal grant proposals, and the faculty to send students to the summer undergraduate or graduate programs at Georgia Tech.
The 2023 Summer program included
The program concluded with a closeout reception where the attendees presented their research work from the past 10 weeks that they spent on the Georgia Tech campus and confirmed their key takeaway as to grow and nurture the research collaborations they have built this summer. Please scroll down to read about each of their experiences at Georgia Tech.
Hosted by: Comas Haynes, Principal Research Engineer at Georgia Tech Research Institute, Hydrogen Initiative Lead at SEI
Mario Bencomo is an assistant professor in Mathematics at Fresno State and was hosted by Comas Haynes, Principal Research Engineer and Research Faculty in the Intelligent Sustainable Technologies Division at GTRI and the lead for Hydrogen initiative at the Strategic Energy Institute.
Mario's Energy Faculty Fellow experience in his own words:
"Overall this summer experience has been very productive. Personally, this program has given me the space and resources to engage in research, which is a challenge coming from a teaching intensive institution. Though I am familiar with the fundamental mathematics of the problem, the application is new to me and an opportunity to grow my research portfolio. To that end, collaborating with Comas and his team has been instrumental in the earlier stages of problem formulation.
Work done over this summer has provided the groundwork for a research program I plan on carrying out at Fresno State. In particular, we have developed baseline code that will serve as the foundation for developing more sophisticated models as well as a framework for a monitoring system. It is my plan to continue collaborating with Comas and his team as I continue this work, while engaging students from my institution in research."
Student: Mikayla Leggett
Mikayla is an undergraduate student at Fresno State and worked with Mario in the program. Mikayla mentioned the below about her experience at Georgia Tech:
"The SURE program has been an amazing opportunity to see how research is conducted and to experience a new place. During my time here I’ve learned about mathematical methods I was unfamiliar with and how to implement them. Additionally, it’s been fascinating to see how research is done, and the collaborative process between experts in different disciplines, like Dr. Haynes. I am excited to continue working on this project with Dr. Bencomo even after this program ends. I’ve also greatly appreciated the chance to see Georgia Tech and Atlanta and everything they have to offer. I was fortunate enough to be assigned fantastic roommates who I’ve really enjoyed getting to know. They’re definitely friends, and I hope we can keep in touch after the program ends. Experiencing the city and the culture has also been a highlight of my experience."
Hosted by: Marilyn Brown, a Regents' and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy, Georgia Tech
Guanyu Huang is an assistant professor in Environmental and Health Science at Spelman College. Read below to know what Guanyu Huang had to say about his experience at Georgia Tech.
"I had an excellent experience at Georgia Tech, and I really enjoyed working with Dr. Brown and the Strategic Energy Institute colleagues. We are working on a paper and will continue our collaboration after my fellowship. My key takeaway from this fellowship is the great opportunity to work closely with Georgia Tech Principal Investigators and form new collaborations between Spelman and Georgia Tech that we plan to continue in the future."
Student: Nia Devonne McKenzie
Nia is a sophomore at Spelman College majoring in Environmental Science, with a passion for sustainable policies, research, and service.
“The program was an enlightening experience that significantly contributed to my research and analysis skills. I have had the fantastic opportunity of working with graduate students to find innovative solutions to climate problems. The Climate Energy Policy Lab has been a joy to work with. I truly am grateful for my time at Georgia Tech with the Strategic Energy Institute.”
Hosted by: Professor Pascal Van Henternryck, School of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Georgia Tech
Xingpeng Li is an assistant professor in the College of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Houston. He was hosted by Pascal Van Henternryck, a A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. Xingpeng Li shares his experience and takeaways from the Faculty Fellow program below:
My overall experience at Georgia Tech:
“It’s really an amazing experience to visit Georgia Tech for this summer. I not only got to know the city and the university here and had a lot of fun, but also gained unique experience interacting with talented students, post-docs and senior researchers, and faculties at Georgia Tech.”
Collaborations with Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck and his team during the past 10 weeks:
“In addition to several individual meetings with Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck, I attended roughly two of their meetings each week: one research group meeting and one machine learning (ML) methodology reading meeting. I got to know the cutting-edge research Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck’s team does through the research group meetings and got the opportunity to learn emerging ML technologies through the ML methodology reading meetings. I also shared my University of Houston team’s research and experience such as power system dynamics and stability-constrained energy scheduling that well complement to the current research of Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck’s team, which makes it suitable for establishing collaborations. I also shared my personal experience as a junior faculty with some Ph.D. students and post-docs here, which may help encourage them to look for academia jobs after graduation.”
Key takeaways from this program and work products:
“Get to know how a large research team is managed efficiently and effectively (by learning from my host at AI4OPT). Get to learn innovative ML approaches that may be very useful to support my own team’s research work. Complementary expertise with my host’s team makes it possible to establish and maintain long-term collaborations. Got to know many exciting energy-related initiatives by Georgia Tech Strategic Energy Institute. Got to know and interact with a number of energy-related professors, researchers and engineers. Created a concept paper that could be potentially extended to a full proposal for future grant applications with my host.”
Final comments:
“There is a weekly informal social event at Pascal Van Hentenryck’s team, which provides good interactive opportunities for people in his team (a very large and strong research team). During such informal ‘meetings’, I really enjoyed the interactions with other team members. Having a short enjoyable break can relieve pressure while working hard on daily research work.”
Mario Bencomo and Mikayla Leggett presenting at the EFF Closeout Reception
Xingpeng Li from the University of Houston presenting at the Closeout Reception
Guanyu Huang and Nia McKenzie Presenting at the Closeout Reception
Priya Devarajan || SEI Communications Program Manager
Group Photo of the participants of the 2023 Energy Unplugged summer camp staged around Georgia Tech’s Koan sculpture.
The summer of 2023 has just been energized! The Energy, Policy, and Innovation Center (EPICenter) hosted the 2023 cohort of "Energy Unplugged," an energy-themed Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM) camp for high school students at the Georgia Tech campus. Rich Simmons, director of Research and Studies at the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) along with graduate students Jake Churchill and Nia McKenzie, led 21 campers in hands-on activities and demonstrations involving solar panels, batteries, catapults, steam engines, and remote-control cars. The students were exposed to a wide variety of topics including renewable and non-renewable energy, electric vehicles, energy efficiency, energy production and delivery, environmental impacts, and equitable electricity access. Campers gained insights into how a STEAM-oriented education can lead to exciting career paths in energy.
During the week of June 12-16, 2023, the camp was hosted in the bio-inspired makerspace at the Kendeda building, an ideal site to learn about energy. The camp kicked off with an educational tour of the ultra-efficient and sustainable Kendeda building that produces more energy than it consumes, turns wasted water into a resource, and utilizes reclaimed materials. Launching right into activities, campers were introduced to energy storage and transformation by constructing catapults and using physics to predict projectile flight distance. Next, students measured the energy consumption of household appliances and estimated their annual energy usage. A camp highlight was the remote-controlled car race on Tech Green, where campers competed to balance both being the fastest and the most energy efficient.
The camp partnered with Georgia Power to provide expert guided tours of two local generation facilities. Campers went on a field trip to Plant McDonough-Atkinson, a combined cycle natural gas plant that powers the homes of 1.7 million Atlantans, and Morgan Falls, a hydroelectric dam constructed in 1904. Students saw firsthand the sources of electricity they use every day. Parents joined as the week wrapped up with “shark-tank” style team presentations where campers applied their knowledge to develop an entrepreneurial approach to delivering basic energy services to off-grid communities in Haiti and Africa.
Energy Unplugged is administered by Georgia Tech Summer P.E.A.K.S. (Program for Enrichment and Accelerated Knowledge in STEAM) at CEISMC (the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing). CEISMC serves as the primary connection point between the faculty and students of Georgia Tech and the preK-12 STEAM education community, reducing the barriers between kids and higher education. Annually, CEISMC programs impact more than 39,000 students, 1,700 teachers, and 200 schools in over 75 school districts throughout the state of Georgia.
The Energy, Policy, and Innovation Center (EPICenter) operates as a division of the Strategic Energy Institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology. It was created to provide an unbiased and interdisciplinary framework for stimulating innovation in energy policy and technology for the Southeast region. Although based on the campus of Georgia Tech, the center will tap into regional and national expertise within academia, businesses, non-governmental organizations (NGO), and research facilities.
Campers compete by racing an RC car around Tech Green
Students tour the Morgan Falls Hydro Dam generation room
Priya Devarajan || SEI Communications Manager
Content & Images: Jake Churchill
Graduate student researcher Yuhgene Liu holds an aluminum material for solid-state batteries.
A good battery needs two things: high energy density to power devices, and stability, so it can be safely and reliably recharged thousands of times. For the past three decades, lithium-ion batteries have reigned supreme — proving their performance in smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles.
But battery researchers have begun to approach the limits of lithium-ion. As next-generation long-range vehicles and electric aircraft start to arrive on the market, the search for safer, cheaper, and more powerful battery systems that can outperform lithium-ion is ramping up.
A team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, led by Matthew McDowell, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Materials Science and Engineering, is using aluminum foil to create batteries with higher energy density and greater stability. The team’s new battery system, detailed in Nature Communications, could enable electric vehicles to run longer on a single charge and would be cheaper to manufacture — all while having a positive impact on the environment.
“We are always looking for batteries with higher energy density, which would enable electric vehicles to drive for longer distances on a charge,” McDowell said. “It’s interesting that we can use aluminum as a battery material, because it’s cost-effective, highly recyclable, and easy to work with.”
The idea of making batteries with aluminum isn’t new. Researchers investigated its potential in the 1970s, but it didn’t work well.
When used in a conventional lithium-ion battery, aluminum fractures and fails within a few charge-discharge cycles, due to expansion and contraction as lithium travels in and out of the material. Developers concluded that aluminum wasn’t a viable battery material, and the idea was largely abandoned.
Now, solid-state batteries have entered the picture. While lithium-ion batteries contain a flammable liquid that can lead to fires, solid-state batteries contain a solid material that's not flammable and, therefore, likely safer. Solid-state batteries also enable the integration of new high-performance active materials, as shown in this research.
The project began as a collaboration between the Georgia Tech team and Novelis, a leading manufacturer of aluminum and the world’s largest aluminum recycler, as part of the Novelis Innovation Hub at Georgia Tech. The research team knew that aluminum would have energy, cost, and manufacturing benefits when used as a material in the battery’s anode — the negatively charged side of the battery that stores lithium to create energy — but pure aluminum foils were failing rapidly when tested in batteries.
The team decided to take a different approach. Instead of using pure aluminum in the foils, they added small amounts of other materials to the aluminum to create foils with particular “microstructures,” or arrangements of different materials. They tested over 100 different materials to understand how they would behave in batteries.
“We needed to incorporate a material that would address aluminum’s fundamental issues as a battery anode,” said Yuhgene Liu, a Ph.D. student in McDowell’s lab and first author on the paper. “Our new aluminum foil anode demonstrated markedly improved performance and stability when implemented in solid-state batteries, as opposed to conventional lithium-ion batteries.”
The team observed that the aluminum anode could store more lithium than conventional anode materials, and therefore more energy. In the end, they had created high energy density batteries that could potentially outperform lithium-ion batteries.
“One of the benefits of our aluminum anode that we're excited about is that it enables performance improvements, but it also can be very cost-effective,” McDowell said. “On top of that, when using a foil directly as a battery component, we actually remove a lot of the manufacturing steps that would normally be required to produce a battery material.”
Short-range electric aircraft are in development by several companies, but the limiting factor is batteries. Today’s batteries do not hold enough energy to power aircraft to fly distances greater than 150 miles or so. New battery chemistries are needed, and the McDowell team’s aluminum anode batteries could open the door to more powerful battery technologies.
“The initial success of these aluminum foil anodes presents a new direction for discovering other potential battery materials,” Liu said. "This hopefully opens pathways for reimagining a more energy-optimized and cost-effective battery cell architecture.”
The team is currently working to scale up the size of the batteries to understand how size influences the aluminum’s behavior. The group is also actively exploring other materials and microstructures with the goal of creating very cheap foils for battery systems.
“This is a story about a material that was known about for a long time, but was largely abandoned early on in battery development,” McDowell said. “But with new knowledge, combined with a new technology — the solid-state battery — we've figured out how we can rejuvenate the idea and achieve really promising performance.”
Citation: Liu, Y., Wang, C., Yoon, S.G. et al. Aluminum foil negative electrodes with multiphase microstructure for all-solid-state Li-ion batteries. Nat Commun 14, 3975 (2023).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39685-x
Funding: Support is acknowledged from Novelis, Inc. M.T.M. acknowledges support from a Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This work was performed in part at the Georgia Tech Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology, a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), which is supported by the National Science Foundation (ECCS-2025462).
Writer: Catherine Barzler
Photography: Rob Felt
Ph.D. student Yuhgene Liu, associate professor Matthew McDowell, and postdoctoral researcher Congcheng Wang in McDowell's lab at Georgia Tech.
Postdoctoral researcher Congcheng Wang builds a battery cell.
A solid-state battery built in McDowell’s laboratory.
Catherine Barzler, Senior Research Writer/Editor
Institute Communications
From the thousands of feet of frozen glaciers to the rising seas off Savannah’s coast, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers are measuring, modeling, and predicting just how climate change is impacting our oceans.
The Strategic Energy Institute and the Venture Lab are excited to welcome Richard Gruber to lead the clean tech commercialization efforts at Georgia Tech. Gruber will be working closely with Georgia Tech researchers helping them convert their ground-breaking research into impactful companies. His role includes cultivating relationships with constituents of the broader Atlanta area, officials in the Georgia department of economic development, the national community of business leaders, angel investors, attorneys, and venture capitalists.
Gruber will identify and grow commercialization of technology innovation in key areas of business strategy, fundraising, team development, and assist with startup efforts in close coordination with the director of Venture Lab and the broader activities of the Office of Commercialization, led by Raghupathy Sivakumar.
“With the state of Georgia emerging as a hub for clean energy, Gruber will play an integral role in coaching, creating, and growing startups related to energy, manufacturing, smart cities, and associated industry clusters,” said, Tim Lieuwen, executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute.
Throughout his career, Gruber has been focused on the development of energy, including infrastructure, markets, policy, stakeholder processes, structured transactions, joint ventures, energy system planning and operations, and startups. Investors in Gruber’s startups include two-time investor Ted Turner through Turner Renewable Energy.
Since 2007, he has been dedicated to clean energy power plant and technology development. As the vice president of project development at First Solar, Richard spearheaded the company’s initial buildout of a multi-gigawatt solar project platform, making First Solar one of the largest solar developers in North America.
In 2017, Gruber co-founded and served as the chief commercial officer for Merit Sustainable Infrastructure (Merit SI). Merit SI develops solar microgrids for infrastructure clients and utility scale renewable projects, and, through its subsidiary Merit Controls, develops advanced power system controls for solar, battery storage, and solar-hydrogen hybrid plants.
In his role at Georgia Tech, Gruber will support commercialization efforts across the entire energy and sustainability innovation space, from energy sources to energy carriers to consumers, and the necessary supporting supply chain and software innovations required to deliver cleaner, more affordable, and reliable, central, and distributed energy solutions. Researchers are encouraged to reach out to Richard Gruber (richard.gruber@venturelab.gatech.edu) with questions or ideas.
“We are so excited to have someone of Richard’s caliber on board. We believe such efforts that target a specific domain for commercialization are crucial to make Georgia Tech the #1 startup campus in the world,” said, Raghupathy Sivakumar, vice president of Commercialization and Chief Commercialization Officer at Georgia Tech.
Previously an “Executive in Residence” at Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center, Gruber lives in Atlanta with his wife of 37 years. They have two daughters also in Atlanta, one a recent ISyE graduate of Georgia Tech, and one working with Delta.
Priya Devarajan || SEI Communications Program Manager