Hosted by the Georgia Institute of Technology
The Society of Engineering Science Technical Meeting is held annually to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of ideas and information among the various disciplines of engineering and the physical and life sciences as well as mathematics.
Important dates:
Deadline for mini-symposium submission | 1/10/2025
Open for abstract submission | 3/15/2025
Sun Geun Yoon works in a glove box in McDowell’s laboratory at Georgia Tech. [Photo by Christopher McKenney]
Lithium-ion batteries power everything from electric cars to laptops to leaf blowers. Despite their widespread adoption, lithium-ion batteries carry limited amounts of energy, and rare overheating can lead to safety concerns. Consequently, for decades, researchers have sought a more reliable battery.
Solid-state batteries are less flammable and can hold more energy, but they often require intense pressure to function. This requirement has made them difficult to use in applications, but new research from Georgia Tech could change that.
The research group of Matthew McDowell, professor and Carter N. Paden Jr. Distinguished Chair in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Materials Science and Engineering, has designed a new metal for solid-state batteries that enables operation at lower pressures. While lithium metal is often used in these batteries, McDowell’s group discovered that combining lithium with softer sodium metal results in improved performance and novel behavior.
McDowell and his collaborators presented their findings in the paper, “Interface Morphogenesis with a Deformable Secondary Phase in Solid-State Lithium Batteries,” published in Science on June 5.
Stackable Solution
Lithium-ion batteries have been the industry standard because they combine compact size, reliability, and longevity. However, they contain a liquid “electrolyte,” which helps lithium ions move in the battery but is also flammable. In solid-state batteries, this electrolyte is a solid material that is less flammable. The challenge is that when the battery is used, the lithium metal in the battery changes its shape, potentially losing contact with the solid electrolyte, which degrades performance. A common way to ensure the metal doesn’t lose contact is to apply high pressure to these batteries.
“A solid-state battery usually requires metal plates to apply this high pressure, and those plates can be bigger than the battery itself,” McDowell said. “This makes the battery too heavy and bulky to be effective.”
The researchers, led by Georgia Tech research scientist Sun Geun Yoon, sought a solution. The solid-state batteries would still require some pressure to function, but they found that by also using a softer metal, less pressure is required. The researchers decided to pair the commonly used lithium metal with a surprising element: sodium.
“Adding sodium metal is the breakthrough,” McDowell noted. “It seems counterintuitive because sodium is not active in the battery system, but it’s very soft, which helps improve the performance of the lithium.”
How soft can sodium be? In a controlled environment, a person could stick their gloved finger into sodium metal and leave an imprint.
From Biology to Battery
To understand the enhanced performance of their battery, the researchers borrowed a concept from biology called morphogenesis. This concept explains how tissues or other biological structures evolve based on local stimuli. Morphogenesis is rarely seen in materials science, but the researchers found that the combination of lithium and sodium behaves according to this concept.
McDowell’s research group has been working on applying morphogenesis to battery materials as part of a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in collaboration with several other universities. Their battery is among the first viable demonstrations of this concept — effectively, the sodium deforms readily at the low pressures needed for solid-state batteries to function.
Battery Boon
The possibilities of a viable, smaller solid-state battery are vast. Imagine a phone battery that could last much longer or an electric vehicle that could drive 500 miles between charges. With this in mind, McDowell and his team have filed for a patent for this battery system.
While solid-state batteries still have some way to go before commercial use, results like these could mean that solid-state batteries can compete with lithium-ion. McDowell’s lab continues to experiment with other materials to further improve performance.
Funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Tess Malone, Senior Research Writer/Editor
tess.malone@gatech.edu
Scientists at the Army Research Laboratory found that an aluminum-based powder prompts hydrogen to split from water. Now, a Georgia Tech-led partnership will carry that research forward. Credit: US Army
Aluminum scrap is one of the most common materials found on military bases and aircraft carriers worldwide. Now, the U.S. Army has tapped Georgia Tech to help turn that waste into power that can be generated off the grid and on demand.
The Army Research Office awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to develop scalable, efficient methods for transforming aluminum into hydrogen energy. The project could lead to a new, low-cost, clean, and efficient energy source powered by discarded materials.
Aaron Stebner, professor and Eugene C. Gwaltney Jr. Chair in Manufacturing in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering, will oversee the multi-year effort at Georgia Tech together with Scott McWhorter, lead for Federal Initiatives at the Strategic Energy Institute.
In addition to several team members from Georgia Tech and the Georgia Tech Research Institute, the project includes researchers from Fort Valley State University, the 21st Century Partnership, MatSys, and Drexel University.
“Aluminum already reacts with water — even wastewater and floodwater — to create hydrogen gas, power, and thermal energy,” McWhorter said. “If aluminum can be efficiently upcycled into stored energy, it could be a game-changer.”
The team’s goal is to experiment with aluminum’s material properties so it can be inexpensively manufactured to create a highly effective reaction that produces low-cost, clean hydrogen.
“Having this ability would allow military bases to be less dependent on the use of a foreign country’s electrical grids,” said Stebner, who is also co-director of Georgia Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing and faculty at the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute.
Manufacturing Aluminum
Several years ago, the Army Research Lab discovered and patented the basic technology for recycling aluminum to produce hydrogen gas. However, current manufacturing methods require too much energy for the amount of hydrogen energy produced.
To make the technology viable and effective, Stebner and his colleagues will research alternate manufacturing processes and then develop automated methods for safely producing and storing stable aluminum. They also plan to optimize these processes using digital twin technologies.
Currently, manufacturers use large machines to grind up and tumble the aluminum in very controlled environments, because stray aluminum powder can be explosive. These methods are very costly.
Stebner and the team are looking into small, modular technologies that could allow for convenient, onsite energy generation. According to Stebner, they are interested in determining how these smaller machines could be so efficient that they could be powered using solar panels.
Stebner envisions that a field of solar panels could power the aluminum-processing modules — the aluminum recycling could be done while the sun shines and produce power 24/7.
Sustainable Impact
Once they have developed the manufacturing techniques and processes, the team plans to test their efficacy by generating power for rural Georgia communities. Success here would prove the technology could be viable for military deployments and other off-grid scenarios.
“The Deep South — especially middle and southern Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana — often has enormous energy disruptions during hurricanes or power outages due to flooding and severe rains,” Stebner said. “Manufacturers can be hesitant to build big plants there, because the grids aren’t as stable. This same technology that the Army plans to use for remote military bases could be a game-changer in rural Georgia.”
If power is unexpectedly cut in those areas, floodwater could then be used to make hydrogen gas. While hydrogen has not yet had its day in the sun, it has great potential as an alternative to fossil fuels, Stebner says.
“From a sustainability perspective, any time you can take something that’s already waste — like scrap aluminum and wastewater — and turn it into a high-value product that can be used to power communities, that is a huge win.”
Funding: Army Research Office
Aaron Stebner
Scott McWhorter
Catherine Barzler, Senior Research Writer/Editor
As electric vehicles and renewable energy storage become central to the global energy transition, the battery supply chain is under more pressure than ever. In 2024, global battery demand surpassed 1 terawatt-hour, equal to powering 100 million homes for an hour, according to the International Energy Agency. But while demand is booming, the infrastructure to meet it — especially in the U.S. — is still catching up.
The U.S. Push for Battery Independence
For years, the U.S. has relied heavily on foreign sources for battery components and materials. Now, with geopolitical tensions rising and clean energy goals looming, policymakers are trying to change that. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed in 2022, offered tax credits and incentives to boost domestic battery production. It also introduced restrictions to limit reliance on adversarial nations.
“These policies, as well as support from state and local governments, have significantly accelerated battery manufacturing in the U.S.,” said Matt McDowell, a mechanical engineering and materials science professor at Georgia Tech and Carter N. Paden Jr. Distinguished Chair for Innovation in Material Science and Metals Processing. “But we’re still in the early stages of building a truly resilient supply chain.”
Gleb Yushin, a professor at Georgia Tech and chief technical officer of battery materials company Sila, agrees. “The IRA’s FEOC restrictions sent a timely, much-needed market signal to spur demand for battery materials made outside of China and, in turn, investments by cell makers into local suppliers,” he said.
Still, reshoring production is no small feat. “It’s been great to see increased domestic production of graphite and other components,” McDowell added. “This will result in more robust battery supply and lower prices in the long-term.”
How New Materials Are Changing the Game
While policy is one piece of the puzzle, innovation is another. For decades, graphite has been the go-to material for battery anodes. But researchers have long eyed silicon as a more powerful alternative — one that can store up to 10 times more charge.
The problem? Silicon swells dramatically during charging, which can damage the battery. “It expands by 300%,” Yushin explained. “That’s compared to just 7% for graphite.”
After years of research, Sila developed Titan Silicon™, a silicon-carbon composite that solves the swelling issue. “It offers 25–35% more energy density, over two times faster charging, and can be dropped into any production line,” Yushin said. “Now, the challenge lies in scaling this technology for mass production while staying ahead of market pressures.”
Solid-state and lithium-sulfur batteries are also gaining attention for their potential to improve safety and performance. But while McDowell is excited about these technologies, he cautions that they’re not yet ready for prime time. “A key focus is developing scalable manufacturing processes to compete with lithium-ion batteries,” he said.
Yushin is more skeptical of the benefits. “Solid-state batteries require entirely new supply chains and infrastructure,” he said. “Silicon is a perfect replacement for lithium metal — it’s stable, reversible, and compatible with existing infrastructure.”
What It Will Take to Compete and Lead
The IRA initially generated over $115 billion in clean energy investments, with $69 billion directed toward battery manufacturing. But with parts of the law now under threat of repeal, the future is uncertain.
“Now that most of the IRA stands to be repealed, we will see if a tariff approach can spur the same results,” Yushin said. “There’s a lot of capital waiting on the sidelines. But without long-term certainty, it’s hard to justify the risk.”
He also pointed to deeper structural issues. “Capital intensity and the cost of borrowing are primary inhibitors of investment,” he said. “Firm purchasing of goods is required to secure financing, but uncertainty over tax credits has cooled demand for local supply.”
McDowell believes the solution lies in a broader strategy. “We need to invest in workforce development, research, and infrastructure,” he said. “This isn’t just about batteries — it’s about building an entire ecosystem.”
Siobhan Rodriguez
Senior Media Relations Representative
Institute Communications
As principal investigator, Aidun has received funding for major projects from the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE-EERE, with Devesh Ranjan as co-principal investigator), the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (with Art Rangauskas at the University of Tennessee). These projects are affiliated with Aidun’s development of the Multiphase Forming Lab at Georgia Tech’s Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI).
The only one of its kind in North America, this innovative system significantly reduces the amount of water required to process paper. As a result, the heat and energy needed to dry the paper — typically an energy-intensive process — are also reduced. The Multiphase Former uses up to 70% less water, which substantially lowers the energy required for drying. This research, which began about five years ago, has drawn broad interest from industry. A more recent project, funded by DOE-EERE and led by Carson Meredith, combines Multiphase Forming with the latest technologies in refining and drying.
Aidun earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and completed his Ph.D. at Clarkson University in 1985. He joined the Woodruff School in 2003 after serving two years as a program director at the National Science Foundation. He began at Georgia Tech in 1988 as an assistant professor at the Institute of Paper Science and Technology. Previously, he was a research scientist at Battelle Research Laboratories, a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University, and a senior research consultant at the National Science Foundation’s Supercomputer Center at Cornell.
Aidun has received several national and international honors, including the National Science Foundation Presidential Investigator Award, the Gunnar Nicholson Fellowship, and the L.E. Scriven Award from the International Society of Coating Science and Technology.
In today’s world, the search for viable, climate-friendly energy sources is a major focus of scientific research. Eric Vogel, Hightower Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering and executive director of the Institute for Matter and Systems at Georgia Tech, is contributing to this effort through a $107 million project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The project, in collaboration with the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), aims to make fusion energy a commercially viable option.
Anastasia Slaughter | School of Materials Science and Engineering
Jud Ready holds a sample of a perovskite solar cell, along with other samples similar to those launched to the International Space Station. (Photo: Branden Camp)
Space researcher. Materials scientist. Entrepreneur. And Yellow Jacket. The only thing missing on Jud Ready’s resume is “astronaut.” Not for lack of trying, though. Ready had hoped earning his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in materials science and engineering at Georgia Tech would lead him to a spot in NASA’s Astronaut Corps. Instead, it’s led him to the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), where his passion for space is alive and well.
1. What about space fascinates you?
It all goes back to my dad being interested in space. In first grade, we went to a how-to-use-the-library class, and I came across a book about the Mercury and Apollo astronauts. I checked it out and renewed it over and over again. I eventually finished it in second grade. So, I’ve had a lifelong commitment since then to space.
2. What drew you to engineering?
I grew up in Chapel Hill. In that same first grade class, we went to the University of North Carolina chemistry department. My mom is really into roses, and they froze a rose in liquid nitrogen then smashed it on the table. It broke into a million bits, and I was like, “What?!” The ability of science to solve the unknown grabbed me. And I had a series of very good science teachers — Mr. Parker in fifth grade, in particular. Then I took a soldering class in high school. We built a multimeter that I still have and still use, and various other things. And I suddenly discovered and started exploring engineering. Plus, I just like making things.
3. How did your career change from hoping to be an astronaut to being an accomplished materials engineer?
When I started looking at colleges, that was my primary interest: What school would help me become an astronaut the quickest. I applied to Georgia Tech as an aerospace engineer, but was admitted as an undecided engineering candidate instead. It was the best thing that could have happened. Later, I got hired as an undergrad by a professor who was doing space-grown gallium arsenide on the Space Shuttle. Ultimately, they offered me a graduate position. I accepted, because I knew you needed an advanced degree to be an astronaut — and for a civilian, a Ph.D. in a relevant career such as materials science.
I applied so many times to be an astronaut — every time they opened a call from 1999 until just a few years ago. Never got in. But I was successful at writing proposals and teaching. So I started doing space vicariously through my students, writing research proposals on energy capture, such as solar cells; energy storage, such as super capacitors; and energy delivery like electron emission. They’re all enabled by engineered materials.
4. What makes Georgia Tech and GTRI a key contributor to the future of humans and science in space?
Georgia Tech offers us so many unfair advantages over our competition. The equipment we’ve got. The students. You’ve got the curiosity-driven basic research coupled with the GTRI applied research model. We’ve had VentureLab and CREATE-X. Now we’ve got Quadrant-i to foster spinout companies from research.
5. One of your solar cell technologies is headed to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. What is it?
Early in my career, we developed a way to texture thin film photovoltaics to allow for light trapping. Inverted pyramids are etched into silicon wafer-type solar cells so a photon of light has a chance to hit different surfaces and get absorbed. But thin film solar cells typically don’t etch well. I thought we could use carbon nanotubes to form a scaffolding, a structure like rebar. It’s mechanically reinforcing, but also electrically conductive. We coat the thin film solar cell material over the carbon nanotube arrays. You’ve got these towers, and you get this photon pinballing effect. Most solar cells perform best when perpendicular to the sun, but with mine, off angles are preferred. That’s great for orbital uses, because the faces and solar panels of spacecraft are frequently off-angle to the sun. And then you don’t have the complexity of mechanical systems adjusting the solar arrays. So, we got funding to demonstrate these solar cells on the International Space Station three times, and those are some of the cells we provided to the Smithsonian.
Joshua Stewart
Assistant Director of Communications,
College of Engineering, Georgia Tech
Smoke cloud rising from a brush wildfire burning in San Francisco, California (Source: Adobe Stock)
You’re managing the Texas Panhandle’s power grid. Heavy winds are blowing, and a worn-out utility pole ignites a fire by crashing onto a transmission line. Luckily, the fire department arrives quickly, putting out the fire before it spreads to nearby cities. But the same thing may happen again with gusty conditions predicted for the next 24 hours. Should you shut off miles of power lines to reduce that risk, causing outages for thousands of residents? Should you add batteries to the grid or move some power lines underground to lessen the impact of future fires? That sounds useful, but paying for these upgrades would require raising electricity rates.
Players of the Current Crisis video game are pondering these questions, similar to professional grid managers during the Texas Smokehouse Creek fire in 2024. But the players did not purchase Current Crisis at a run-of-the-mill gaming store. They might have played it at Georgia Tech’s Dataseum, which featured the game in a recent exhibition. Or they might have helped develop it in weekly meetings with Daniel Molzahn, associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and EPIcenter initiative lead.
“Current Crisis started as a computer simulation I programmed in Summer 2020 for a senior-level course I taught that fall,” says Molzahn. “My students had to dispatch crews to maintain or repair a simplified model of the Georgia power grid. In the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, each dispatch had a risk of infection and quarantine, which meant losing the crew for the rest of that round. The students had a fixed budget to balance two competing goals: operating a power system with minimal outages and keeping the repair crews healthy.”
The class project was popular, and its scope began to grow. Molzahn proposed turning his simulation into a video game in a July 2021 grant application to the National Science Foundation. He received the five-year award that fall and launched his “Vertically Integrated Project” on power grid gaming the following spring. It soon attracted about 35 students per semester, from sophomores to those pursuing graduate degrees in various disciplines. Most students stay for three to four semesters.
Tristan Ziegler joined the VIP as a computational media sophomore in Spring 2022 — and still works on it three years later as a professional programmer. “I found the project by searching for ‘game’ on the VIP website,” says Ziegler, who graduated in 2024. “It offered much more freedom than traditional classes but still allowed me to earn credits and grades, unlike a student organization where you volunteer your time.”
The students quickly discovered the benefits of working toward a shared goal in smaller groups, focused on coding, grid modeling, graphic design, or artistic creativity. Some volunteered to lead initiatives, such as organizing the Dataseum exhibition or the 2025 Seth Bonder summer camps, where they will teach high schoolers the basics of game programming.
Another long-term member of the VIP team is Ryan Piansky, a doctoral student, who studies the resilience of power grids to wildfires. He combines well-known engineering tools — algorithms for finding a mathematically optimal problem solution — with historical wildfire data to evaluate grid management decisions.
“I have examined if policies based on established engineering principles help the people who need the most help, reduce the risk of outages broadly across the whole grid, and optimally allocate limited resources,” explains Piansky, who works in Molzahn's research lab. “To do that, I combine power grid models with realistic wildfire simulations to assess if those policies would likely generate desirable outcomes in a range of plausible scenarios.”
The VIP work on grid modeling has informed Piansky’s research, but the climate models he uses to mimic the spread of wildfires are too complex for a fast-moving video game. That’s why he has helped the students develop simplified versions of these models. Humidity and vegetation, for example, influence both real fires and those popping up in Current Crisis.
Piansky’s research is part of Molzahn’s long-term goal: developing computer tools that help professional grid managers improve the grid’s resilience to natural disasters — from pandemics and wildfires to hurricanes, heat waves and floods.
“We plan to record the choices made by Current Crisis players in crowdsourced datasets that will support our research,” says Molzahn. “By using these datasets to train machine-learning algorithms, we can harness the power of AI to develop better disaster response policies.” (The European Space Agency uses a similar gamification strategy to map moon craters.)
The project’s benefits go well beyond these research contributions. Its educational value includes experience working in multidisciplinary teams of students at different levels and leadership development. Molzahn also hopes the game will help build public acceptance of disruptive actions during real disasters.
“Recognizing the tradeoffs inherent in grid management is important, whether it’s understanding why power shutoffs reduce fire risks or why service restorations are time-consuming,” says Molzahn. “This may also generate broader public support for electricity rate increases and tax allocations to pay for infrastructure hardening.”
Written by: Silke Schmidt
Story Written by: Silke Schmidt
Priya Devarajan || Research Communications Program Manager
In mid-April Georgia Tech’s Renewable Bioproducts Institute hosted a mini-symposium discussing the challenges and potential solutions to integration at different scales and levels of abstraction.
This workshop underscored the importance of collaborative efforts in advancing biomass integration, paving the way for a more sustainable and economically viable future in the refining industry.
To listen to the workshop:
We’d like to share our thanks with our speakers for their insights:
RBI would love to hear from you on future topics you would like to hear us cover. Share your feedback with Executive Director Carson Meredith.