Manufacturing a cleaner future
Manufacturing had a giant summer time. The CHIPS and Science Act, signed into legislation in August, represents a large funding in U.S. home manufacturing. The act goals to drastically broaden the U.S. semiconductor business, strengthen provide chains, and spend money on R&D for brand new technological breakthroughs. In accordance with John Hart, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productiveness at MIT, the CHIPS Act is simply the newest instance of considerably elevated curiosity in manufacturing in recent times.
“You’ve a number of forces working collectively: reflections from the pandemic’s affect on provide chains, the geopolitical state of affairs around the globe, and the urgency and significance of sustainability,” says Hart. “This has now aligned incentives amongst authorities, business, and the funding neighborhood to speed up innovation in manufacturing and industrial know-how.”
Hand-in-hand with this elevated deal with manufacturing is a must prioritize sustainability.
Roughly one-quarter of greenhouse fuel emissions got here from business and manufacturing in 2020. Factories and vegetation may deplete native water reserves and generate huge quantities of waste, a few of which might be poisonous.
To deal with these points and drive the transition to a low-carbon financial system, new merchandise and industrial processes should be developed alongside sustainable manufacturing applied sciences. Hart sees mechanical engineers as taking part in a vital function on this transition.
“Mechanical engineers can uniquely remedy crucial issues that require next-generation {hardware} applied sciences, and know the right way to convey their options to scale,” says Hart.
A number of fast-growing firms based by school and alumni from MIT’s Division of Mechanical Engineering provide options for manufacturing’s environmental drawback, paving the trail for a extra sustainable future.
Gradiant: Cleantech water options
Manufacturing requires water, and many it. A medium-sized semiconductor fabrication plant makes use of upward of 10 million gallons of water a day. In a world more and more affected by droughts, this dependence on water poses a serious problem.
Gradiant provides an answer to this water drawback. Co-founded by Anurag Bajpayee SM ’08, PhD ’12 and Prakash Govindan PhD ’12, the corporate is a pioneer in sustainable — or “cleantech” — water tasks.
As doctoral college students within the Rohsenow Kendall Warmth Switch Laboratory, Bajpayee and Govindan shared a pragmatism and penchant for motion. They each labored on desalination analysis — Bajpayee with Professor Gang Chen and Govindan with Professor John Lienhard.
Impressed by a childhood spent throughout a extreme drought in Chennai, India, Govindan developed for his PhD a humidification-dehumidification know-how that mimicked pure rainfall cycles. It was with this piece of know-how, which they named Provider Fuel Extraction (CGE), that the duo based Gradiant in 2013.
The important thing to CGE lies in a proprietary algorithm that accounts for variability within the high quality and amount in wastewater feed. On the coronary heart of the algorithm is a nondimensional quantity, which Govindan proposes in the future be referred to as the “Lienhard Quantity,” after his doctoral advisor.
“When the water high quality varies within the system, our know-how robotically sends a sign to motors throughout the plant to regulate the move charges to convey again the nondimensional quantity to a worth of 1. As soon as it’s introduced again to a worth of 1, you’re working in optimum situation,” explains Govindan, who serves as chief working officer of Gradiant.
This technique can deal with and clear the wastewater produced by a producing plant for reuse, in the end conserving thousands and thousands of gallons of water annually.
As the corporate has grown, the Gradiant workforce has added new applied sciences to their arsenal, together with Selective Contaminant Extraction, a cost-efficient technique that removes solely particular contaminants, and a brine-concentration technique referred to as Counter-Movement Reverse Osmosis. They now provide a full know-how stack of water and wastewater remedy options to purchasers in industries together with prescribed drugs, power, mining, meals and beverage, and the ever-growing semiconductor business.
“We’re an end-to-end water options supplier. We have now a portfolio of proprietary applied sciences and can decide and select from our ‘quiver’ relying on a buyer’s wants,” says Bajpayee, who serves as CEO of Gradiant. “Clients have a look at us as their water companion. We are able to care for their water drawback end-to-end to allow them to deal with their core enterprise.”
Gradiant has seen explosive progress over the previous decade. With 450 water and wastewater remedy vegetation constructed up to now, they deal with the equal of 5 million households’ price of water every day. Current acquisitions noticed their complete staff rise to above 500.
The range of Gradiant’s options is mirrored of their purchasers, who embody Pfizer, AB InBev, and Coca-Cola. Additionally they rely semiconductor giants like Micron Know-how, GlobalFoundries, Intel, and TSMC amongst their prospects.
“Over the previous few years, now we have actually developed our capabilities and fame serving semiconductor wastewater and semiconductor ultrapure water,” says Bajpayee.
Semiconductor producers require ultrapure water for fabrication. In contrast to consuming water, which has a complete dissolved solids vary within the components per million, water used to fabricate microchips has a variety within the components per billion or quadrillion.
At the moment, the common recycling charge at semiconductor fabrication vegetation — or fabs — in Singapore is just 43 p.c. Utilizing Gradiant’s applied sciences, these fabs can recycle 98-99 p.c of the ten million gallons of water they require each day. This reused water is pure sufficient to be put again into the manufacturing course of.
“What we’ve finished is eradicated the discharge of this contaminated water and almost eradicated the dependence of the semiconductor fab on the general public water provide,” provides Bajpayee.
With new rules being launched, strain is rising for fabs to enhance their water use, making sustainability much more vital to model homeowners and their stakeholders.
Because the home semiconductor business expands in mild of the CHIPS and Science Act, Gradiant sees a possibility to convey their semiconductor water remedy applied sciences to extra factories in america.
Through Separations: Environment friendly chemical filtration
Like Bajpayee and Govindan, Shreya Dave ’09, SM ’12, PhD ’16 targeted on desalination for her doctoral thesis. Underneath the steering of her advisor Jeffrey Grossman, professor of supplies science and engineering, Dave constructed a membrane that would allow extra environment friendly and cheaper desalination.
A radical price and market evaluation introduced Dave to the conclusion that the desalination membrane she developed wouldn’t make it to commercialization.
“The present applied sciences are simply actually good at what they do. They’re low-cost, mass produced, and so they labored. There was no room out there for our know-how,” says Dave.
Shortly after defending her thesis, she learn a commentary article within the journal Nature that modified every thing. The article outlined an issue. Chemical separations which are central to many manufacturing processes require an enormous quantity of power. Business wanted extra environment friendly and cheaper membranes. Dave thought she might need an answer.
After figuring out there was an financial alternative, Dave, Grossman, and Brent Keller PhD ’16 based Through Separations in 2017. Shortly thereafter, they had been chosen as one of many first firms to obtain funding from MIT’s enterprise agency, The Engine.
At the moment, industrial filtration is finished by heating chemical compounds at very excessive temperatures to separate compounds. Dave likens it to creating pasta by boiling all the water off till it evaporates and all you’re left with is the pasta noodles. In manufacturing, this technique of chemical separation is extraordinarily energy-intensive and inefficient.
Through Separations has created the chemical equal of a “pasta strainer.” Reasonably than utilizing warmth to separate, their membranes “pressure” chemical compounds. This technique of chemical filtration makes use of 90 p.c much less power than normal strategies.
Whereas most membranes are fabricated from polymers, Through Separations’ membranes are made with graphene oxide, which might stand up to excessive temperatures and harsh situations. The membrane is calibrated to the shopper’s wants by altering the pore dimension and tuning the floor chemistry.
At the moment, Dave and her workforce are specializing in the pulp and paper business as their beachhead market. They’ve developed a system that makes the restoration of a substance generally known as “black liquor” extra power environment friendly.
“When tree turns into paper, solely one-third of the biomass is used for the paper. At the moment probably the most worthwhile use for the remaining two-thirds not wanted for paper is to take it from a fairly dilute stream to a fairly concentrated stream utilizing evaporators by boiling off the water,” says Dave.
This black liquor is then burned. Many of the ensuing power is used to energy the filtration course of.
“This closed-loop system accounts for an unlimited quantity of power consumption within the U.S. We are able to make that course of 84 p.c extra environment friendly by placing the ‘pasta strainer’ in entrance of the boiler,” provides Dave.
VulcanForms: Additive manufacturing at industrial scale
The primary semester John Hart taught at MIT was a fruitful one. He taught a course on 3D printing, broadly generally known as additive manufacturing (AM). Whereas it wasn’t his fundamental analysis focus on the time, he discovered the subject fascinating. So did most of the college students within the class, together with Martin Feldmann MEng ’14.
After graduating along with his MEng in superior manufacturing, Feldmann joined Hart’s analysis group full time. There, they bonded over their shared curiosity in AM. They noticed a possibility to innovate with a longtime steel AM know-how, generally known as laser powder mattress fusion, and got here up with an idea to appreciate steel AM at an industrial scale.
The pair co-founded VulcanForms in 2015.
“We have now developed a machine structure for steel AM that may construct components with distinctive high quality and productiveness,” says Hart. “And, now we have built-in our machines in a completely digital manufacturing system, combining AM, postprocessing, and precision machining.”
In contrast to different firms that promote 3D printers for others to provide components, VulcanForms makes and sells components for his or her prospects utilizing their fleet of commercial machines. VulcanForms has grown to almost 400 staff. Final yr, the workforce opened their first manufacturing manufacturing unit, generally known as “VulcanOne,” in Devens, Massachusetts.
The standard and precision with which VulcanForms produces components is crucial for merchandise like medical implants, warmth exchangers, and plane engines. Their machines can print layers of steel thinner than a human hair.
“We’re producing parts which are tough, or in some circumstances inconceivable to fabricate in any other case,” provides Hart, who sits on the corporate’s board of administrators.
The applied sciences developed at VulcanForms could assist result in a extra sustainable approach to manufacture components and merchandise, each immediately by means of the additive course of and not directly by means of extra environment friendly, agile provide chains.
A method that VulcanForms, and AM on the whole, promotes sustainability is thru materials financial savings.
Lots of the supplies VulcanForms makes use of, reminiscent of titanium alloys, require quite a lot of power to provide. When titanium components are 3D-printed, considerably much less of the fabric is used than in a standard machining course of. This materials effectivity is the place Hart sees AM making a big affect by way of power financial savings.
Hart additionally factors out that AM can speed up innovation in clear power applied sciences, starting from extra environment friendly jet engines to future fusion reactors.
“Firms searching for to de-risk and scale clear power applied sciences require know-how and entry to superior manufacturing functionality, and industrial additive manufacturing is transformative on this regard,” Hart provides.
LiquiGlide: Decreasing waste by eradicating friction
There may be an unlikely wrongdoer in the case of waste in manufacturing and shopper merchandise: friction. Kripa Varanasi, professor of mechanical engineering, and the workforce at LiquiGlide are on a mission to create a frictionless future, and considerably cut back waste within the course of.
Based in 2012 by Varanasi and alum David Smith SM ’11, LiquiGlide designs customized coatings that allow liquids to “glide” on surfaces. Each final drop of a product can be utilized, whether or not it’s being squeezed out of a tube of toothpaste or drained from a 500-liter tank at a producing plant. Making containers frictionless considerably minimizes wasted product, and eliminates the necessity to clear a container earlier than recycling or reusing.
Since launching, the corporate has discovered nice success in shopper merchandise. Buyer Colgate utilized LiquiGlide’s applied sciences within the design of the Colgate Elixir toothpaste bottle, which has been honored with a number of business awards for design. In a collaboration with world- famend designer Yves Béhar, LiquiGlide is making use of their know-how to magnificence and private care product packaging. In the meantime, the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration has granted them a Gadget Grasp Submitting, opening up alternatives for the know-how for use in medical units, drug supply, and biopharmaceuticals.
In 2016, the corporate developed a system to make manufacturing containers frictionless. Referred to as CleanTanX, the know-how is used to deal with the surfaces of tanks, funnels, and hoppers, stopping supplies from sticking to the aspect. The system can cut back materials waste by as much as 99 p.c.
“This might actually change the sport. It saves wasted product, reduces wastewater generated from cleansing tanks, and might help make the manufacturing course of zero-waste,” says Varanasi, who serves as chair at LiquiGlide.
LiquiGlide works by making a coating fabricated from a textured strong and liquid lubricant on the container floor. When utilized to a container, the lubricant stays infused throughout the texture. Capillary forces stabilize and permit the liquid to unfold on the floor, making a constantly lubricated floor that any viscous materials can slide proper down. The corporate makes use of a thermodynamic algorithm to find out the combos of protected solids and liquids relying on the product, whether or not it’s toothpaste or paint.
The corporate has constructed a robotic spraying system that may deal with giant vats and tanks at manufacturing vegetation on website. Along with saving firms thousands and thousands of {dollars} in wasted product, LiquiGlide drastically reduces the quantity of water wanted to often clear these containers, which usually have product caught to the perimeters.
“Usually while you empty every thing out of a tank, you continue to have residue that must be cleaned with an incredible quantity of water. In agrochemicals, for instance, there are strict rules about the right way to cope with the ensuing wastewater, which is poisonous. All of that may be eradicated with LiquiGlide,” says Varanasi.
Whereas the closure of many manufacturing amenities early within the pandemic slowed down the rollout of CleanTanX pilots at vegetation, issues have picked up in latest months. As manufacturing ramps up each globally and domestically, Varanasi sees a rising want for LiquiGlide’s applied sciences, particularly for liquids like semiconductor slurry.
Firms like Gradiant, Through Separations, VulcanForms, and LiquiGlide reveal that an enlargement in manufacturing industries doesn’t want to come back at a steep environmental price. It’s doable for manufacturing to be scaled up in a sustainable manner.
“Manufacturing has all the time been the spine of what we do as mechanical engineers. At MIT particularly, there may be all the time a drive to make manufacturing sustainable,” says Evelyn Wang, Ford Professor of Engineering and former head of the Division of Mechanical Engineering. “It’s superb to see how startups which have an origin in our division are taking a look at each side of the manufacturing course of and determining the right way to enhance it for the well being of our planet.”
As laws just like the CHIPS and Science Act fuels progress in manufacturing, there shall be an elevated want for startups and firms that develop options to mitigate the environmental affect, bringing us nearer to a extra sustainable future.