Overly acidic soils can mean the difference between feeding a region and famine. Each crop needs the right soil pH to thrive, and acidic conditions, produced primarily by industrial emissions and application of fertilizers, can harm growing conditions. It has recently been estimated that sub-Saharan Africa, for example, loses billions of dollars annually in crop yield because of poor agricultural conditions. But there is a possible solution — and it could even help the Earth’s climate. 

For centuries, farmers have neutralized soil acidity with a practice called liming. It involves mixing crushed calcium- or magnesium-rich rocks, known as limestone, into the soil to balance pH. But liming has long been an assumed tradeoff in which removing acid also meant increasing carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

New research from Georgia Tech shows that the opposite may be true. Agricultural liming can actually reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide and improve crop yield. 

“The current thinking about liming is that farmers must choose between doing something that could benefit them economically or reducing their greenhouse gas emissions,” said Chris Reinhard, an associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “But this is often a false choice. They can do both.”

The researchers published a new framework for the potential role of liming in food security and greenhouse gas mitigation in August in the paper, “Using Carbonates for Carbon Removal,” in Nature Water. 

Collecting Carbon Data

The framework is based in part on ongoing work Reinhard and his collaborators are pursuing on the impacts of agricultural liming in the Upper Midwest’s Corn Belt for a Department of Energy study. With funding from the Grantham Foundation, they’re now turning their attention to local farms in southern Georgia and North Carolina. 

For each farm, the researchers measure data that most farmers would collect already, like soil pH and nutrients. But the team also tracks more specialized measurements, including trace elements and greenhouse gas fluxes in the soil. All this data is matched to a high-resolution, machine learning grid of the farm’s geography to determine exactly which crops might benefit. 

The researchers are using the data to build a computer model that predicts how carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will move through any particular soil system. Liming won’t universally absorb carbon dioxide — or if it does, there may be an occasional time delay between carbon emissions and absorption — which is why the researchers factor soil, crop rotation, climate, and other management practices into their calculations.

“Our goal is to develop a way that farmers can monitor and plan cheaply, and largely through techniques they are already using, so we don't have to send out a whole team to gather data,” Reinhard said. “We are trying to develop a predictive model architecture for planning agricultural practice across scales, but it’s important that the techniques required on the field are actually feasible for farmers.”

This data could be pivotal for farmers, and it could also help policymakers as they address farming subsidies and foreign aid funding. Globally, food-insecure regions like sub-Saharan Africa could become more self-sufficient with more liming. Farmers in parts of the U.S. could also improve their yields and, in effect, their profits, if they limed more fields. 

The added benefit of lowering carbon could get even more farmers on board, and there is extensive exploration and implementation of agricultural practices already on voluntary and governmental carbon markets. Carbon dioxide is only one greenhouse gas that liming can lower; researchers are also exploring how liming can reduce methane and nitrous oxide — the latter of which is a key climate impact of human agriculture and is often considered a “hard-to-abate” emission. 

Liming may be a centuries-old practice, but its applications are potentially much wider than initially believed. In the future, farming may be part of the answer to reducing carbon emissions, instead of part of the problem. 

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Fast charging a battery is supposed to be risky — a shortcut that leads to battery breakdown. But for a Georgia Tech team studying zinc-ion batteries, fast charging led to a breakthrough: It made the battery stronger. This result could revolutionize how we power homes, hospitals, and the grid.

By flipping a foundational belief in battery design, Hailong Chen, an associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, and his team found that charging zinc-ion batteries at higher currents can make them last longer. The surprising result, recently published in Nature Communications, challenges core assumptions and offers a path toward safer, more affordable alternatives to lithium-ion technology. 
 

Why Zinc-Ion Batteries? 

Zinc-ion batteries have several key advantages over lithium-ion batteries, the most commonly used rechargeable battery technology:

• Abundant: Zinc is one of the most abundant metals on Earth, and it’s mined in many countries.
• Low cost: Zinc is significantly cheaper than lithium and doesn’t rely on scarce materials.
• Nonflammable: Unlike lithium, zinc batteries won’t catch fire — a critical safety benefit.
• Environmentally safer: Zinc is less toxic and easier to recycle than lithium-based materials.

However, until Chen’s discovery, zinc-ion batteries had one major drawback. The growth of dendrites, the sharp metal deposits that form during charging, can eventually short-circuit the battery. 

“We found that using faster charging actually suppressed dendrite formation instead of accelerating it,” Chen said. “It’s a very different behavior than what we see in lithium-ion batteries.”

With this approach, the zinc doesn’t build up into dendrites. Instead, it settles into smooth, compact layers — more like neatly stacked books than splintered shards — a structure that not only avoids short circuits but also helps the battery last longer.

“It goes against the conventional thinking that fast charging shortens battery life,” Chen said. “What we found expands people’s understanding of fast charging that could rewrite how we think about battery design and where they can be used.
 

Solving Half of the Problem

Even breakthroughs have limits. Chen was quick to point out that while his discovery solves a major issue, it only fixes one half of the battery.

A battery has two main ends, the anode and the cathode. Chen’s team made the anode last much longer. Now, the cathode must catch up. He is working to improve the cathode so the whole battery performs reliably over time. His team is also experimenting with mixing zinc with other materials to make zinc-ion batteries even more durable.

Testing Everything at Once

Chen’s team didn’t just stumble on these results. They built a novel tool that allowed them to watch how zinc behaved under different charging rates in real time, studying many samples simultaneously.

That real-time, side-by-side view was important. Traditional battery experiments usually test one variable at a time. But this novel approach allowed researchers to test hundreds of conditions at the same time, speeding up discovery and revealing patterns that would have been easy to miss.

“We weren’t just seeing whether the battery worked or not; we were watching the structure of the material evolve as it charged,” Chen noted. Using their new tool, he and his team uncovered for the first time why fast charging makes zinc settle into smooth, tightly packed layers instead of dangerous, needle-like spikes. No one had ever experimentally mapped out this process before.

It’s an approach that combines efficiency with insight.
 

Charging Into the Future

Chen’s team didn’t reinvent the battery. They challenged the status quo — and the data took them somewhere no one imagined. That unexpected result could redefine battery science.

“You can imagine these zinc-ion batteries being used to store solar energy in homes, or for grid stabilization,” Chen said. “Anywhere you need reliable, affordable backup power.”

With growing demand for clean energy, unstable lithium supply chains, and safety concerns over flammable batteries, the need for alternatives has never been more urgent.

If all goes well, Chen hopes zinc-ion batteries could be ready for everyday use in about five years.

Chen’s research was supported by Yifan Ma, ME 2024; Josh Kasher, associate professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering; and the U.S Department of Energy National Laboratories. The study was funded by Novelis through the Novelis–Georgia Tech Research Hub, with additional funding from the National Science Foundation. Two Novelis researchers, Minju Kang and John Carsley, are co-authors on the paper.

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The inaugural cohort of Georgia Tech’s Research Leadership Academy (RLA), a distinguished group of researchers selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants across campus, has been announced.

These outstanding faculty members were chosen for their exceptional research accomplishments, demonstrated leadership, and ability to drive high-impact, interdisciplinary initiatives. Representing a wide range of academic disciplines, they embody the depth, innovation, and collaborative spirit that define Georgia Tech’s research community.

Over the next year, this inaugural cohort will engage in a dynamic, immersive program designed to cultivate strategic research leadership through mentorship, experiential learning, and cross-campus dialogue. Their work through the RLA will not only strengthen Georgia Tech’s research enterprise but also help shape its trajectory for years to come.

Please join us in celebrating and congratulating these remarkable scholars as they embark on this exciting journey. 

• Steve Diggle – Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience; School of Biological Sciences
• Marta Hatzell – Institute for Matter and Systems; Renewable Bioproducts Institute; Strategic Energy Institute; George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
• Ada Gavrilovska - Institute for Data Engineering and Science; School of Computer Science
• Margaret Kosal – Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience; Strategic Energy Institute; Institute for Matter and Systems; Sam Nunn School of International Affairs
• Sheng Dai – Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience; Strategic Energy Institute; School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Yuguo Tao – George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering; Nuclear and Radiological Engineering; and Medical Physics
• Chris Wiese – Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience; Institute for Data Engineering and Science; Institute for People and Technology; School of Psychology
• Mathieu Dahan – Institute for People and Technology, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering
• Thackery Brown – School of Psychology
• Charlotte Alexander – Tech AI, Scheller College of Business; Law and Ethics
• Jeff Young – Institute for Data Engineering and Science; Partnership for Advanced Computing Environments; Office of Information Technology
• Meltem Alemdar – Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing
• Kamran Paynabar – Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute; Institute for Data Engineering and Science; Renewable Bioproducts Institute; H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering
• John A. Christian – Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering
• Farzaneh Najafi – Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience; School of Biological Sciences
• Dave Flaherty – Strategic Energy Institute; School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Eunhwa Yang - Institute for Matter and Systems; Strategic Energy Institute; School of Building Construction
• James Tsai – Strategic Energy Institute; School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Jennifer Hirsch – Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems; Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education; Strategic Energy Institute

This summer, the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) and the Energy Policy and Innovation Center (EPIcenter) hosted Energy Unplugged, an education and outreach program focused on science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM). The annual summer camp is organized through the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC), a unit of the College of Lifetime Learning at Georgia Tech. As one of Tech’s most sought-after programs for high school students, the weeklong summer camp continues to spark interest in energy innovation and develop foundational skills in science.

“Energy Unplugged introduces high school students to Georgia Tech’s vibrant innovation ecosystem, engaging young minds in shaping a more forward-thinking energy future,” said Christine Conwell, interim executive director of SEI.

Rich Simmons, SEI’s director of Research and Studies and a George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering faculty instructor, has led the camp’s curriculum since 2019. Under his leadership, students engage in applied learning experiences that introduce energy efficiency principles, foster creative thinking, and encourage real-world decision-making.

“Energy Unplugged features interactive activities and field trips which provide students tangible exposure to working energy facilities and STEM careers,” Simmons said. “As an integral part of our education and outreach efforts, the camp continues to inspire the next generation to think critically about energy and its impact on their communities and the world.”

“Collaborating with SEI on Energy Unplugged allows us to amplify CEISMC’s mission of expanding access to high-quality STEM experiences,” said Sirocus Barnes, director of Expanded Learning Programs at CEISMC. “By connecting students with real-world energy challenges and Georgia Tech’s research ecosystem, we’re helping them envision themselves as future innovators and problem-solvers.”

The week began with a hands-on workshop where students constructed mousetrap-powered cars, applying core physics concepts and the mechanics of energy conversion. In another activity, students raced remote-controlled cars to highlight the importance of swift decision-making while accounting for external variables. These experiments offered students a dynamic understanding of the relationship between energy and physics. Camp participants also explored electricity use in everyday life by experimenting with solar charging setups, learning how devices like cellphones can be powered through solar energy.

One participant, a rising high school senior, noted the program's differentiation from the typical classroom model: “We had a lot of experiences that aren’t typically offered in high school, which gave me a greater understanding of physics.” 

The camp also featured site visits, including a tour of The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design — the first building in the Southeast to meet the standards of the Living Building Challenge. Students explored the building’s facilities, including its rooftop garden and photovoltaic canopy. Additional field trips included tours of Oglethorpe’s Georgia System Operations plant and the Morgan Falls hydroelectric power plant, which offered students firsthand exposure to how energy is generated and managed across the state. 

To conclude the week, students collaborated in teams on a mini design challenge: devising a sustainable taco business. They were tasked with cooking beans efficiently using either a slow cooker or a pressure cooker and learning how to balance time, energy use, and customer satisfaction. This final project reinforced lessons in energy trade-offs and problem-solving. Teams presented their findings to an audience of parents, faculty, and staff — a memorable opportunity that allowed them to develop public speaking and technical presentation skills as well.

“The presentation on the last day of camp encourages students to use their creativity in different ways to form new solutions and ideas,” said Jake Churchill, graduate student and former camp counselor, “which provides great exposure to an open-minded, nonlinear approach to engineering — and a great teacher, Rich Simmons.” 

Contributed by: Katie Strickland

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This June, New York City’s government and utility urged households to conserve electricity during an extreme heat wave with temperatures reaching 100 degrees F. People were asked to set air conditioners to 76 degrees, to avoid using more than one air conditioning unit, and to delay using electricity-hungry appliances during peak cooling hours.

The big concern is that when every air conditioning unit is running at full blast, electricity demand can exceed total generating capacity and force the utility to implement rolling blackouts. These rolling blackouts avoid a total system failure but leave people without access to cooling and other electronics as temperatures reach dangerous levels.

As temperatures peak in the United States during the coming weeks, utilities and city governments may follow suit with similar requests for voluntary conservation. Voluntary requests for conservation in the United States are part of the standard energy emergency playbook and go back at least to President Carter’s request for Americans to reduce heating temperatures during the 1977 energy crisis.

So, do voluntary conservation requests work to save energy and prevent blackouts?

Read Full Story on the EPIcenter Newspage

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For more than 15 years, Georgia Tech has provided the City of Atlanta with the foundational data and insight that shape how the city tracks, understands, and plans for changes in its tree canopy. The latest cycle of this research — delivered through the Center for Urban Resilience and Analytics (CURA) — continues that legacy by offering a high-resolution, citywide canopy assessment using satellite imagery and field validation.

The assessment, funded by the city’s Tree Recompense Fund, uses advanced remote sensing tools such as WorldView-2 satellite data and a random forest classification model to categorize land into three land cover types. These include tree canopy, non-tree vegetation (grass, shrubs, and low lying vegetation) and non-vegetation (water, pervious surface). The methodology delivers a detailed spatial picture of land cover across the city.

“This is simply a tool in their planning arsenal,” said Anthony Giarrusso, who has led every canopy study since 2008. “Before they did any of this work in 2008, everything was anecdotal. It was reactionary.”

The new study is not advocacy — it’s information. Giarrusso emphasized that while researchers stay neutral in the politics of urban growth and conservation, their work equips city leaders with science-based knowledge to make more effective zoning and planning decisions.

In addition to mapping existing conditions, the Georgia Tech team developed the Potential Planting Index (PPI), a scalable tool that identifies where tree planting is physically possible based on current land cover. The tool quantifies the difference between tree canopy and non-tree vegetation, indicating zones with restoration potential.

Another key insight is the challenge of interpreting canopy change without understanding land use patterns. “It gives you a false sense of stability if you don’t understand the underlying land use,” said Giarrusso. “You might see canopy regrowth on paper, but that land could be cleared again tomorrow.” He explained that this false signal is particularly common in stalled development sites: “We saw a lot of properties where trees had regrown after initial clearing, but it was temporary and monoculture, low quality canopy. Several of those areas were cleared again for construction later.”

Giarrusso pointed to these “loss-gain-loss” cycles as one of the more misleading aspects of tree canopy analysis without strong land use context. “Some of them were pipe farms — land cleared for development with infrastructure like water and sewer lines installed, but then construction never happened. So trees grow back, and you get a canopy gain that doesn’t last and is nowhere near the quality of the trees originally cleared.”

He stressed that policymakers need to consider the permanence of canopy when using the data. “If it’s just going to be cleared again in two years, it’s not really a gain. That’s why long-term tracking and land use analysis together are so important.”

The city has incorporated these tools into broader planning efforts, including zoning reform and tree ordinance revisions. The research supports recommendations such as restricting full lot clearing in certain zoning categories and adjusting setback or lot coverage limits to better preserve existing canopy.

Giarrusso underscored the urgency of protecting larger, intact forested tracts. “If you can see it from space and it’s still forest — save it,” he said. “Once it’s cleared, you don’t get it back.”

From the humble beginnings of the three-wheeled Benz Patent-Motorwagen in 1886, the automobile has been a continuous story of technological progress. Each era has seen cars push the boundaries of innovation, evolving from early mechanical systems into sophisticated, computer-driven machines.

We’re now in a new generation of automobiles, where roadways are increasingly shared by electric vehicles (EVs) and autonomous vehicles (AVs). 

EVs are projected to dominate global car sales by 2030, according to an RMI report. Meanwhile, AVs are gradually entering the mainstream, with 37 percent of new passenger cars expected to be equipped with advanced driver-assistance technologies by 2035, according to McKinsey & Company.

Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) researchers are at the forefront of advanced automotive technologies, working on everything from electric engines and computer vision, to modernizing the power grid to support EV charging.

Given current advancements and future possibilities, ECE is helping bring the future car into view, though many surprises and uncertainties remain. Learn what's on the horizon on the ECE Newspage.

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In June, the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) hosted the Energy and National Security Summer Cohort Meeting that convened seed grant awardees from the Energy and National Security Initiative. A partnership between SEI and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the initiative provides research support through a seed grant program that launched last summer.

“As national security needs rapidly evolve, Georgia Tech is leveraging its research ecosystem and seed funding programs to accelerate the development of transformational technologies and strategies that strengthen national resilience,” said Christine Conwell, interim executive director of SEI. “We designed this seed grant program to tackle pressing national security priorities of today, such as threats to the grid, nuclear security, supply chain resilience, and renewable integration.”

The event began with an introduction from John Tien, SEI distinguished external fellow, professor of the practice, and former deputy secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, who addressed the evolving and multifaceted challenges facing energy, national security, and policy today. Tien’s talk emphasized the importance of early, strategic research investments in driving sustainable progress and long-term solutions. 

The seed grant awardees then presented the initial progress of their research projects through lightning talks and a Q&A session. The research projects included:

• Energy Infrastructure Security and Risk Assessment Through Interactive Wargaming.
• Evaluating Energy Storage Materials, Supplies, and Systems in the Context of National Security Requirements.
• Nanostructured Sensors for Monitoring of Nuclear Fuel Cycle.
• Resilient Critical Infrastructures via Provable Secure Control Algorithms.
• Robust Energy Systems Planning by Way of Novel Systems Engineering (RESPoNSE).
• SPARC: Severe-Weather Predictive Analytics and Resilient Communication.
• The Strategic Mineral Economy: Challenges and Opportunities for Critical Resources.

“That critical intersection between energy and national security is where both risk and opportunity lie. To mitigate those risks and take advantage of the opportunities, our project teams have developed research topic areas that align with the U.S. Department of Energy's nine pillars for American energy dominance and security, as well as ongoing U.S. Department of Defense priorities,” said Tien.

The meeting showcased Georgia Tech’s collaborative and forward-looking research at the intersection of energy and national security, aimed at shaping a more secure and resilient energy future. 

Written by: Katie Strickland & Priya Devarajan

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In June, Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) and the Energy Policy and Innovation Center hosted Energy Unplugged, a weeklong summer camp focused on science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) for high school students. 

Led by SEI’s director of Research and Studies and principal research engineer, Richard Simmons, the camp introduced students to energy fundamentals and highlighted STEAM-related careers and undergraduate pathways valuable in today’s workforce. The curriculum included energy resources, energy production and consumption, conversion and delivery, electric circuits, battery storage, environmental impacts, and data analytics. 

As a featured part of this year’s program, students visited the headquarters of Oglethorpe Power, Green Power EMC, and Georgia System Operations Corporation in Tucker, Georgia. The companies are owned by and serve 38 of Georgia’s not-for-profit electric membership cooperatives (EMCs), which provide retail electricity to approximately 4.7 million of Georgia’s more than 11 million residents. 

“As electricity demand continues to rise, so does the need to grow a skilled and capable workforce for the future. We are proud to partner with Georgia Tech on this inspiring program, supporting the growth and development of the next generation of leaders who will help power Georgia’s future,” said George Mathai, Oglethorpe Power performance and reliability engineer.

The site visit included a tour of Georgia System Operations’ generation and transmission control centers and presentations by Oglethorpe Power and Green Power EMC experts.

The tour began in the generation control center, where students observed operators continuously monitoring demand to make real-time decisions to increase or decrease electricity generation. Students learned that Georgia System Operations dispatches a wide array of energy sources and generation technologies to ensure a stable, reliable, secure, and efficient power grid. 

The group then visited the transmission control center, where a series of massive screens showed the web of transmission lines across the state. Students learned that the transmission system relies on extremely high-voltage lines to minimize loss across long distances. The voltages are then stepped down as they approach population centers at sub-stations, so they are suitable for use by residences, businesses, and industrial facilities. The operators in the transmission center monitor the grid for disturbances and respond to alarms, maintaining the integrity of the state’s power infrastructure. 

The tour offered a behind-the-scenes look at how electricity generation and transmission are integrated and managed across the state. 

Over lunch, Oglethorpe Power’s George Mathai and Shane Tolbert, Green Power EMC’s distributed energy resources manager, led discussions highlighting the roles of various generation sources and the benefits of a diverse portfolio in balancing cost, reliability, sustainable resources, and environmental impact. 

“Learning about how Oglethorpe Power, Green Power EMC, and Georgia System Operations work together was a highlight of the Energy Unplugged camp, as it reinforced many of the tabletop demonstrations and hands-on activities we had conducted in the days leading up to the visit. When students then get a chance to visualize energy production, conversion, and delivery concepts at full scale, lots of light bulbs start clicking on,” Simmons said.

Jointly contributed by:
Oglethorpe Power Corporation 
Georgia Tech Strategic Energy Institute (Destin Smyth)

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