Elsa A Olivetti

Massachusetts Institute of Technology | MIT

The increasing demands of sustainable energy, electronics, and biomedical applications call for next-generation functional materials with unprecedented properties. Of particular interest are emerging materials that display exceptional physical properties, making them promising candidates in energy-efficient microelectronic devices. As the conventio...

A major obstacle to the realization of novel inorganic materials with desirable properties is efficient materials discovery over both the materials property and synthesis spaces. In this work, we propose and compare two novel reinforcement learning (RL) approaches to inverse inorganic oxide materials design to target promising compounds using speci...

Solid-state batteries (SSBs) are safer, cheaper, and higher energy density alternatives to conventional Li-ion batteries, of which the global production capacity has reached 150 GWh/year. However, development of new materials and their optimization to predicted ideal structure-property characteristics can typically take >10 years of capital-intensi...

The integration of advanced machine learning (ML) techniques with density functional theory (DFT) has significantly enhanced the optimization and prediction of stable material structures. However, translating these computational predictions into successful laboratory syntheses-whether by autonomous labs or human scientists remains time-and cost-int...

Data-driven synthesis planning is a crucial step in the discovery of novel materials with desirable properties. Zeolites are crystalline nanoporous materials with applications in catalysis, adsorption, and ion exchange. The synthesis of zeolitic materials remains a significant challenge due to its high-dimensional synthesis space and intricate stru...

Energy infrastructure requires metals, and metals production requires energy. A transparent, physical model of the metals-energy system is presented to explore under what conditions this dependence constrains or accelerates the transition to a net-zero economy. While the mineral (as high as 340 Mt yr⁻¹ iron ore, 210 Mt yr⁻¹ limestone, 250 Mt yr⁻¹ b...

Cement production contributes to over 6% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, driven by clinker’s energy-intensive production and limestone calcination. Substituting clinker with cementitious substitutes is an effective strategy for decarbonization. However, typical clinker substitutes—coal fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag—face...

The low‐carbon energy transition requires significant increases in production for many mineral commodities. Understanding demand, technological requirements, and prices associated with this production increase requires understanding the supply chain dynamics of many minerals simultaneously, and via a consistent framework. A generalized economics‐in...

In the United States, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle collection rates have not increased in a decade. Recycling rates remain abysmal while industry commitments and policy targets escalate the demand for recycled plastics. We investigate the PET bottle recycling system, where collection is a critical bottleneck and recycled PET supply is no...

Consolidating published research on aluminum alloys into insights about microstructure–property relationships can simplify and reduce the costs involved in alloy design. One critical design consideration for many heat-treatable alloys deriving superior properties from precipitation are phases as key microstructure constituents because they can have...

Zeolites, nanoporous aluminosilicates with well-defined porous structures, are versatile materials with applications in catalysis, gas separation, and ion exchange. Hydrothermal synthesis is widely used for zeolite production, offering control over composition, crystallinity, and pore size. However, the intricate interplay of synthesis parameters n...

In this paper, we present MatKG, a knowledge graph in materials science that offers a repository of entities and relationships extracted from scientific literature. Using advanced natural language processing techniques, MatKG includes an array of entities, including materials, properties, applications, characterization and synthesis methods, descri...

Here, we present a computational framework, combining machine learning models with inverse optimization, which can accelerate and optimize concrete mix design with respect to climate impact and/or cost. Our approach leverages a novel amortized Gaussian process (GP) model trained on a large industry dataset to predict concrete strength based on mix...

Given the vast spectrum of material properties characterizing each compound, learning representations for inorganic materials is intricate. The prevailing trend within the materials informatics community leans towards designing specialized models that predict single properties. We introduce a multi-task learning framework, wherein a transformer-bas...

Density is one of the most commonly measured or estimated material properties, especially for glasses and melts that are of significant interest to many fields, including metallurgy, geology, materials science, and sustainable cements. Here, three types of machine learning models (i.e., random forest [RF], artificial neural network [ANN], and Gauss...

Data-driven synthesis planning with machine learning is a key step in the design and discovery of novel inorganic compounds with desirable properties. Inorganic materials synthesis is often guided by heuristics and chemists’ prior knowledge and experience, built upon experimental trial-and-error that can be both time and resource consuming. Recent...

Raw materials costs form an increasingly significant proportion of the total costs of renewable energy technologies that must be adopted at unprecedented rates to combat climate change. As the affordable deployment of these technologies grows vulnerable to materials price changes, effective strategies must be identified to mitigate the risk of high...

Predictions of metal consumption are vital for criticality assessments and sustainability analyses. Although demand for a material varies strongly by region and end‐use sector, statistical models of demand typically predict demand using regression analyses at an aggregated global level (“fully pooled models”). “Un‐pooled” regression models that pre...

Density is one of the most commonly measured or estimated materials properties, especially for glasses and melts that are of significant interest to many fields, including metallurgy, geology, materials science and sustainable cements. Here, two types of machine learning (ML) models (i.e., random forest (RF) and artificial neural network (ANN)) hav...

Dissolution of silicate-based materials is important to many natural processes and engineering applications, including cement and concrete production. Here, we present a data-driven study to predict the dissolution rates of crystalline silica (i.e., quartz) in near-neutral and alkaline environments. We present a quartz dissolution database containi...

Exposure to ideas in domains outside a scientist's own may benefit her in reformulating existing research problems in novel ways and discovering new application domains for existing solution ideas. While improved performance in scholarly search engines can help scientists efficiently identify relevant advances in domains they may already be familia...

Materials property predictions have improved from advances in machine learning algorithms, delivering materials discoveries and novel insights through data-driven models of structure-property relationships. Nearly all available models rely on featurization of materials composition, however, whether the exclusive use of structural knowledge in such...

Researchers continue to explore and develop aluminum alloys with new compositions and improved performance characteristics. An understanding of the current design space can help accelerate the discovery of new alloys. We present two datasets: 1) chemical composition, and 2) mechanical properties for predominantly wrought aluminum alloys. The first...

Having transformed our way of life, rechargeable batteries are poised for exponential growth over the coming decade, notably due to the wider adoption of electric vehicles. An international expert panel proposes a combination of vision, innovation and practice for feasible pathways toward sustainable batteries.

Material production drives an increasingly large fraction of CO2‐equivalent emissions. Material efficiency strategies such as recycling serve to reduce these emissions. Current analyses of the effectiveness of such strategies do not include economically induced rebound effects, overestimating the associated environmental benefits. We present a dyna...

Material production drives an increasingly large fraction of CO2-equivalent emissions. Material efficiencyMaterial efficiency strategies such as recycling serve to reduce these emissions. However, prior analyses of such strategies do not include economically induced rebound effects, overestimating the associated environmental benefits. We present a...

For a significant shift in alloy designAlloy design to happen, the aluminiumAluminium industry needs to explore a broader range of compositional and processing dimensions. This work provides the background to guide the design of new alloys, especially where opportunities are present to improve recyclability. To achieve this, a blending model with a...

Materials science has had a key role in lowering CO2 emissions from the electricity sector through the development of technologies for renewable energy generation and high-performance energy storage. However, outside of the energy sector, there remain considerable greenhouse gas emissions linked to materials production, particularly due to growth i...

Metal–insulator transition (MIT) compounds are materials that may exhibit metallic or insulating behavior, depending on the physical conditions, and are of immense fundamental interest owing to their potential applications in emerging microelectronics. An important subset of MIT materials are those with a transition driven by temperature. The numbe...

Metal−insulator transition (MIT) compounds are materials that may exhibit metallic or insulating behavior, depending on the physical conditions, and are of immense fundamental interest owing to their potential applications in emerging microelectronics. An important subset of MIT materials are those with a transition driven by temperature. The numbe...

Climate change will increase the frequency and severity of supply chain disruptions and large-scale economic crises, also prompting environmentally protective local policies. Here we use econometric time series analysis, inventory-driven price formation, dynamic material flow analysis, and life cycle assessment to model each copper supply chain act...

Organic structure directing agents (OSDAs) play a crucial role in the synthesis of micro- and mesoporous materials especially in the case of zeolites. Despite the wide use of OSDAs, their interaction with zeolite frameworks is poorly understood, with researchers relying on synthesis heuristics or computationally expensive techniques to predict whet...

With only 8.4% of end-of-life plastics collected for recycling in 2017, management of postconsumer plastic waste in the U.S. has raised significant concerns. We present an integrated approach to assess the environmental benefits and economic implications of plastic waste management by interfacing collection and sorting with process-based treatment...

Efforts to reduce the carbon footprint associated with cement and concrete production have resulted in a number of promising lower‐emission alternatives. Still, research has emphasized a small subset of potentially useful precursor materials. With the goal of expanding the precursor pool, this work presents results of parallel literature mining and...

Research publications are the major repository of scientific knowledge. However, their unstructured and highly heterogenuous format creates a significant obstacle to large-scale analysis of the information contained within. Recent progress in natural language processing (NLP) has provided a variety of tools for high-quality information extraction f...

The pursuit of scalable and manufacturable all-solid-state batteries continues to intensify, motivated by the rapidly increasing demand for safe, dense electrical energy storage. In this perspective, we describe the numerous, often conflicting implications of materials choices that have been made in the search for effective mitigations to the inter...

The search for safer next-generation lithium ion batteries has motivated development of solid-state electrolytes (SSEs), owing to their wide electrochemical potential window, high ionic conductivity (10⁻³ to 10⁻⁴ S cm⁻¹) and good chemical stability with a wide range of high charge capacity electrode materials. Still, optimization of the processing...

Given the emergence of data science and machine learning throughout all aspects of society, but particularly in the scientific domain, there is increased importance placed on obtaining data. Data in materials science are particularly heterogeneous, based on the significant range in materials classes that are explored and the variety of materials pr...

Climate change will increase the frequency and severity of supply-chain disruptions and large-scale economic crises, also prompting environmentally-protective local policies. Here we use econometric time series analysis, inventory-driven price formation, dynamic material flow analysis, and gate-to-gate life cycle analysis to model the response of e...

Climate change will increase the frequency and severity of supply-chain disruptions and large-scale economic crises, also prompting environmentally-protective local policies. Here we use econometric time series analysis, inventory-driven price formation, dynamic material flow analysis, and gate-to-gate life cycle analysis to model the response of e...

Exciting metallurgical breakthroughs of the last decades, and the development and wide range availability of new and more capable experimental and theoretical tools for metals research, demonstrate that we are witnessing the dawn of a new age in metals design. Historically, the discovery of new metallic materials has enabled the vast majority of th...

This study explores the effect of aqueous chemical environment on the dissolution rate of the minerals γ-C2S and fayalite, identified as primary phases of ladle furnace steel slag and copper slag. γ-C2S and fayalite were exposed to solutions of NaOH and Ca(OH)2, chosen to mimic the pore solutions of alkali-activated and Portland-cement based binder...

Lithium-ion battery demand, particularly for electric vehicles, is projected to increase by over 300% throughout the next decade. With these expected increases in demand, cobalt (Co)-dependent technologies face the risk of significant impact from supply concentration and mining limitations in the short term. Increased extraction and secondary recov...

This collection addresses the pressing needs for sustainable technologies with reduced energy consumption and environmental pollutions and the development and application of alternative sustainable energy to maintain a green environment and efficient and long-lasting energy supply. Contributors represent both industry and academia and focus on new...

Open Access Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1702-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1702-5.pdf Metallic materials have enabled technological progress over thousands of years. The accelerated demand for structural (that is, load-bearing) alloys in key sectors such as energy, construction, safety and transportation is res...

Recycling is generally recognized as a key component of strategies to achieve improved resource efficiency and reduce the environmental burden associated with resource use. However, to maximize the net benefits offered by recycling, one must understand the system-wide effects of substituting primary materials with recycled materials and how those e...

2019 Association for Computational Linguistics Materials science literature contains millions of materials synthesis procedures described in unstructured natural language text. Large-scale analysis of these synthesis procedures would facilitate deeper scientific understanding of materials synthesis and enable automated synthesis planning. Such anal...

Materials science literature contains millions of materials synthesis procedures described in unstructured natural language text. Large-scale analysis of these synthesis procedures would facilitate deeper scientific understanding of materials synthesis and enable automated synthesis planning. Such analysis requires extracting structured representat...

Methods sections adopt a common practice of past-tense narrative using passive voice. Here, we discuss issues with current and historical writing conventions in materials science literature and propose a structured way to facilitate reproducibility, clarity, and machine readability.

Zeolites are porous, aluminosilicate materials with many industrial and "green" applications. Despite their industrial relevance, many aspects of zeolite synthesis remain poorly understood requiring costly trial and error synthesis. In this paper, we create natural language processing techniques and text markup parsing tools to automatically extrac...

Decision-makers in government and industry must develop policy and strategy for highly complex systems, trading off competing objectives such as environmental and economic impact. These trade-offs can be difficult to analyze, which may lead to misinformed choices. There is lack of decision support tools that both include multiple objectives and fac...

The use of low-cost feedstocks such as waste cooking oils has gained prominence in biodiesel production due to its potential economic and environmental advantages. Since these feedstocks are derived from multiple sources, its compositional variability has led to quality concerns that may significantly limit its utilization. One potential strategy t...

Every sector faces unique challenges in the transition to sustainability. Across each, materials will play a key role. That will depend on novel materials and processes, but these will only be effective with a solid understanding of the trends in the market. For each respective sector, the papers in this collection will explore the trends and drive...

Understanding cobalt criticality and availability is necessary as lithium-ion battery demand, particularly for electric vehicles, is projected to increase exponentially throughout the next decade. With these increases in demand, supply concentration and mining limitations could have a significant impact on cobalt-dependent firms, sectors, and emerg...

The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society 2019. Slags with varied amorphous and crystalline content, typical of iron and steel production, are generally underutilized. One promising reuse pathway for these wastes is chemical activation, producing alternatives to conventional building materials with lower embodied energy. The formation of a hardened...

Recycling is a key strategy to reduce the environmental impact associated with industrial resource use. Recent improvements in materials recovery technologies offer the possibility for recouping additional value from recycling. However, incorporation of secondary raw materials into production may be constrained by operational complexity in two-stag...

Life cycle assessments (LCAs) provide valuable guidance regarding environmental implications of design and manufacturing choice; however, they remain resource intensive and time consuming. Streamlining approaches have been developed to address these issues. One of these streamlining approaches, structured under-specification and probabilistic triag...

Many advanced energy and environmentally relevant technologies rely on metals that have been identified as critical, or whose availability may be limited. Several of these elements are produced mostly as by‐products of mining other base metals (carriers). This by‐product dependence has been proposed as a significant supply‐risk indicator by the mat...

Life cycle thinking plays an important role in sustainable development in the building sector. However, the complexity of data collection and scope definition limits life cycle assessment (LCA) applications. Even if the inventory data have already been collected, tabulated, and indexed, the method is still time-consuming, which may be discouraging...

Sustained growth in lithium-ion battery (LIB) demand within the transportation sector (and the electricity sector) motivates detailed investigations of whether future raw materials supply will reconcile with resulting material requirements for these batteries. We track the metal content associated with compounds used in LIBs. We find that most of t...

The supply of recycled material depends on historic consumption, i.e. what constitutes scrap available today originates from previously made products. Analytical tools, such as materials flow analysis, use this observation to estimate scrap metal flows. The supply of recycled metal also depends on changing economic conditions, e.g. metal consumptio...

The urban built environment maintains the alluring prospect of being a source for our future resource needs. This work imagines new local recycling paradigms for concrete and masonry waste within an existing urban environment. Using Lisbon, Portugal as a case study, we proposed three context-specific material recycling scenarios to make use of mine...

Increased interest in high entropy alloys (HEA)s has led to significant activity in the development of new equi-molar multicomponent metal systems. The present viewpoint article suggests applying a lens of practicality related to alloy economics and resource usage issues. A framework for HEA materials selection is presented to assist the metallurgi...

Biodiesel is globally produced by transesterification of vegetable oils. Each vegetable oil possesses a typical fatty acid (FA) profile that will influence the final properties of the biodiesel. Models have been developed to express the relationship between the FA composition and the fuel properties. However, as the FA sources are variable and beca...

Biodiesel is globally produced by transesterification of vegetable oils. Each vegetable oil possesses a typical fatty acid (FA) profile that will influence the final properties of the biodiesel. Models have been developed to express the relationship between the FA composition and the fuel properties. However, as the FA sources are variable and beca...

Increased use of secondary raw materials in metal production offers several benefits including reduced cost and lowered energy burden. The lower cost of secondary or scrap materials is accompanied by an increased uncertainty in elemental composition. This increased uncertainty for different scraps, if not managed well, results in an increased risk...

What is the environmental impact of a house throughout its lifetime? This revised report (October 2016) summarizes research on life cycle assessment (LCA) of residential buildings in order to identify gaps in understanding as well as best practices for LCA methodology.