BILGE YILDIZ

Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering & Materials Science and Engineering at MIT

Bilge is a materials scientist who collaborates with others around the world, like Sossina and Shirley, to develop better batteries and fuel cells. Fuel cells work like tanks of gasoline, however, instead of gasoline, they hold chemical fuels such as hydrogen or synthetic gas. These chemical fuels are much cleaner and safer than gasoline and can store energy captured from the sun or other renewable sources.

Storage is a major key to shifting toward a cleaner energy system, as it will solve the problem of intermittent sources. How will we turn on the lights at night if we rely on solar energy? Fuel cells and batteries. Bilge’s lab develops and improves these solutions.

“On one hand we are developing these technologies, but energy conservation is something any person can be more cognizant about and able to do. So that's something that you should do, I should do, everyone should do.”