The Masic Lab collaborates with the MIT ec³ hub, where Prof. Masic serves as Co-director. As an international research collaboration, the hub researches and implements multifunctional cement-based materials with functionalities including, but not limited to, energy storage and self-heating. At the ec³ hub, Prof. Masic and team primarily investigate the applications of multifunctional materials in infrastructure.

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Related news and publications:

• MIT News, "MIT engineers create an energy-storing supercapacitor from ancient materials"

• Boston Globe, "Is cement the solution to storing renewable energy? Engineers at MIT think so."

• Chanut, N., Stefaniuk, D., Weaver, J. C., Zhu, Y., Shao-Horn, Y., Masic, A., & Ulm, F. J. (2023). Carbon–cement supercapacitors as a scalable bulk energy storage solution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(32), e2304318120.

Why was ancient Roman concrete so durable? The Masic Lab identified the mechanism behind the resilience of Roman structures: the inclusion of lime clasts in mixes (and hot mixing) that serve as a calcium source that reacts to fill cracks. The Masic Lab is investigating how these ancient lessons could be used to inform more durable concrete today.

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Related news and publications:

• Linda M. Seymour et al. "Hot mixing: Mechanistic insights into the durability of ancient Roman concrete." Sci. Adv.9,eadd1602(2023).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.add1602

• ​L. M. Seymour, N. Tamura, M. D. Jackson, and A. Masic, "Reactive binder and aggregate interfacial zones in the mortar of Tomb of Caecilia Metella concrete, 1C BCE, Rome," J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 105, 1503-1518 (2022).

• L. M. Seymour, D. Keenan-Jones, G. L. Zanzi, J. C. Weaver, and A. Masic, "Reactive ceramic aggregates in mortars from ancient water infrastructure serving Rome and Pompeii," Cell Rep. Phys. Sci. 3, 101024 (2022).

The Masic Lab collaborates with the MIT CSHub, where Prof. Masic serves as a Principal Investigator. The CSHub brings together leaders from academia, industry, and government to develop breakthroughs using a holistic approach that will achieve durable and sustainable homes, buildings, and infrastructure in ever more demanding environments. At the CSHub, Prof. Masic and team primarily investigate the applications of accelerated carbonation in concrete towards sustainability.

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Related publications:

• CSHub Research Brief, "Carbonation Before Curing: A New Path to Concrete Sustainability"

• Stefaniuk, D., Hajduczek, M., Weaver, J. C., Ulm, F. J., & Masic, A. (2023). Cementing CO2 into CSH: A step toward concrete carbon neutrality. PNAS nexus, 2(3), pgad052.

The Masic Lab at MIT, in collaboration with The Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones (DANAT), is conducting an innovative research project titled "Exploring the Nanoworld of Biogenic Gems." This project focuses on developing advanced materials characterization tools to analyze the unique properties of pearls and assign individual identifiers to them. By studying pearls at the nanoscopic level using state-of-the-art tools from MIT.nano, the team aims to distinguish pearls based on their species, locality, and growth methods. The research could enhance pearl classification processes through machine learning and shed light on biomineralization, with potential implications for sustainable building materials.

The Masic Lab investigates how taking inspiration from biological systems can help create more durable, less resource-intensive structures and processes. 

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Related publications:

• ​H.-C. Loh, T. Divoux, B. Gludovatz, P. U. P. A. Gilbert, R. O. Ritchie, F.-J. Ulm, and A. Masic, "Nacre toughening due to cooperative plastic deformation of stacks of co-oriented aragonite platelets," Commun. Mater. 1, 77 (2020)

• T. Giesa, R. Schuetz, P. Fratzl, M. J. Buehler, and A. Masic, "Unraveling the Molecular Requirements for Macroscopic Silk Supercontraction," ACS Nano 11, (2017)

The Masic Lab is at the forfront of Raman spectroscopy and its applications towards characterizing and understanding cementitious, ancient, and biological materials. Due to the complex hierarchical and irregular structure of biological and archaeological samples, the ability to simultaneously document compositional and structural variability across length scales presents many technical challenges. We demonstrated that the various modalities of Raman chemical imaging provide solutions to this problem, and when correlated with other characterization techniques, allow the acquisition of information-rich multidimensional data sets. Some notable contributions include characterizing the biomineralogical signatures of breast microcalcifications, characterizing the early hydration kinetics of ordinary portland cement, and visualizing the mechanism behind ancient Roman concrete's self-healing ability.

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Related publications:

• Loh, H. et al. "Time-Space-Resolved Chemical Deconvolution of Cementitious Colloidal Systems Using Raman Spectroscopy." Langmuir 2021, 37, 23, 7019–7031

• Jennie A. M. R. Kunitake et al. "Biomineralogical signatures of breast microcalcifications." Sci. Adv.9,eade3152(2023).DOI:10.1126/sciadv.ade3152