The Lab Beat

Diran Apelian found a way to recycle EV batteries and co-founded the billion-dollar company Ascend Elements, one of TIME'S America's Top Ten Green Tech companies of 2024. Find out about the cutting-edge technology his lab uses to upcycle metal at UC Irvine's Samueli School of Engineering.
Transcript:
[sound of Tesla starting]
[sci fi music]
NATALIE TSO, HOST: What happens to EV batteries when we’re done with them? Diran Apelian invented a way to recycle them and co-founded a billion dollar company Time magazine named one of America’s Top Ten Green Tech Companies of 2024. Apelian is a distinguished professor of materials science and engineering at UC Irvine’s engineering school.
What inspired him to get into metallurgy – the science of metals?
DIRAN APELIAN: Even in my teenage years, I was very interested in rocks, minerals. I sort of had a connection with the Earth, you know. I found it to be beautiful, actually.
Then I was exposed to a tour of a steel mill, United States Steel. And for the first time, I saw molten steel, but not in a few grams, but in tons of it being poured. I was completely taken back. I was fascinated.
There was something magical about the smell, the visual Earth and the fire. And I got attracted to it. And the same time the Sputnik age was coming up, you know, where we were sending missiles up to the moon and trying to get to the moon and everything in the headlines was all the material problems. You know, the tiles protecting the vessel,
they were falling off. I put two and two together and that's how I got interested in metallurgical engineering.
TSO: And the world is better for it. He not only made aluminum foil stronger, he put aluminum in cars.
APELIAN: Many years ago, most of the cars were mostly steel, and in the nineties or so we moved from steel to aluminum because aluminum is three times lighter. So we want to decrease the weight of the car so we don't use as much fuel. So we actually got involved in developing the alloys for the Audi, all aluminum.
TSO: That was the Audi A8 — the first mass market car with an all aluminum body. He also tells us what led to the billion dollar company he co-founded, Ascend Elements, which is a major recycler of EV batteries.
APELIAN: The battery comprises of anode and cathodes. The cathode has a lot of prescious metal in it – cobalt, nickel. So when these things are end of life, they need to be recovered, all these precious metals. So we developed the technologies to recover the cobalt, the nickel and lithium, all the important elements that are not critical, but near critical and reuse them into a new cathode. And ironically, the recycled material has better properties than the virgin material because we can manipulate the morphology of the powder sizes and all that to control the conductive electronic charges and all that.
TSO: Apelian’s lab is a leader in upcycling end-of-life metal products.
[sounds of ultrasound machine melting metal]
[RAQUEL JAIME: It’s only going to be a small amount]
TSO: That’s Ph.D. student Raquel Jaime. She’s melting scrap aluminum in their lab and it does look pretty cool.
She’s giving them an ultrasonic treatment that can potentially remove impurities in the metal. She’s researching how the ultrasound – which is not yet used in industry -  can make stronger metals for cars and jets.  
[JAIME: There we go cool, and then we’ll just remelt it in a little bit.]
TSO: As for the molten metal that captivated her professor? She loves it too.
JAIME:  - That’s like my favorite thing that I get to do in here, that treating it with the ultrasound. It all sounds very crazy.
It's not something I would have imagined myself doing as a kid. It sounds weird. I always say that it sounds like the two combination things that you need to get like a Marvel super villain. Ultrasound frequency and molten metal, it sounds like if I fell in, I would turn into some weird sort of character. I don’t know. [Jaime laughs]
[sound of cold spray machine]
TSO: Another cutting-edge technology in the lab is the cold spray machine which you hear in the background. Now cold is relative because here it means at least 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Graduate student Michael Ross explains what’s special about this million-dollar 3D printer:
ROSS: So the big advantage of cold spray is that you don't need to actually melt the metal that you're processing so you can make solid metal parts without melting your material, which really opens up the possibilities of using more advanced materials that melt at higher temperatures. And that's important for applications in extreme environments like aerospace, where they need to withstand higher temperatures.
TSO: That’s the cold. As for the spray, it runs at three times the speed of sound or Mach3. Ph.D. student Jack Webster explains what happens in cold spray:
 
WEBSTER: We have a robotic arm that moves this substrate plate around while a nozzle flings powder at a super high velocity into the desired shape. So think of it as you have two spherical powders and they hit each other with so much force that they turn to like little pancakes. That's the best way to kinda describe cold spray.  So definitely a really cool machine.
[sci fi music]
TSO: Apelian’s lab is using all this cutting-edge technology to work with 42 corporations around the world.
APELIAN: Mostly with the automotive industry, aerospace industry…there’s a lot of scrap that’s being produced at the end of life. We’re developing new alloys, 100% recycled material. In other words, from scrap. We're making the sausage for metals. You think about that. What the hell is sausage? Sausage is leftover meat put in the intestines of the animal. It tastes pretty damn good, actually, right? Sometimes it tastes better than steak. So we're making a sausage for metal industry.
We’re working with General Motors and some of the other companies where the materials that are being utilized in the car now is hundred percent scrap.
TSO: Diran Apelian’s lab at UC Irvine is a global leader in making leaner, greener, and better metals.
This is Natalie Tso for The Lab Beat, brought to you by the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering. If you like our podcast, please share it and leave a review.
(Season 1, Episode 4)

Ronke Olabisi is healing wounds without scars and making bone grow from seashells as she works on the 100 Year Starship Project which aims to enable travel beyond our solar system. Learn how Olabisi, UCI associate professor of biomedical engineering, is helping humans stay healthier in space and on Earth.  The 100 Year Starship Project was launched by the U.S. Department of Defense.
Transcript:
[sci fi music]
[sounds of inverted microscope]
NATALIE TSO, HOST: This is The Lab Beat where we take a look at cutting-edge labs at UC Irvine’s engineering school. I'm Natalie Tso. Ronke Olabisi is enabling wounds to heal without scars and making bone grow from seashells. She's an associate professor of biomedical engineering at UC Irvine, and her research is fueled by her desire to go to outer space.
RONKE OLABISI: See, I've wanted to go since I was four years old. I want to be weightless. I've been weightless before. I've gone on a parabolic flight. But I want the whole package. I can't explain what that four year old was thinking because whatever she was thinking, she put this burning desire in me that I've never grown out of it.
TSO: She's a part of NASA's 100 Year Starship Project, which aims to enable travel beyond our solar system within a hundred years.
OLABISI: The 100 Year Starship is more of a thought experiment. If you look back at what they did in getting to the moon. They decided in 1961 we’re going to go to the moon, and in 1969 they landed on the moon. And the explosion of technology...they had to be able to communicate with the astronauts so they developed a communications satellite, and now we all have cell phones that rely on communication satellites.
They needed the astronauts to be protected from the sun, so they invented UV protection and so we have sunglasses because of that. There is something in your life that we owe to going to the moon.
TSO: Now, her lab is working on enabling humans to stay healthier in space and on Earth.
OLABISI: One of the things I work on is bone. Astronauts lose tons of bone in space.
TSO: Astronauts lose at least 1% of their bone density per month in space. This happens on Earth too. Women in midlife can lose over 1% of their bone density a year. But Olabisi has found promise in a solution using seashells that was inspired by an old Mayan jaw.
OLABISI: It was found in the 1930s, and it hung out in a Harvard museum. Everybody saw that three of the teeth were from the shell. The inside of the shell is called nacre — that lustrous mother-of-pearl iridescent part — that's called nacre.
TSO: When seashells make nacre, it's 3000 times stronger than its main ingredient aragonite.
 
OLABISI: This dentist, who in 1972, he saw it and he was like — Can I X-ray that? And so he X-rayed it and he found bony integration into the shells. And so he knew it was tooth implants. If you think about that, I know a lot of people who have had dental implants that have failed. So this lasted thousands and thousands of years — after this person no longer existed, these teeth lasted.
TSO: That sparked a lot of research into nacre. What's great about it is it doesn't get rejected by the human body.
OLABISI: Because if I take a piece of bone from me and put it into you, you're going to reject it. What we're rejecting is that our bones have cells all through them, and the cells have a name tag that say that it’s Ronke’s cells and your cells have a name tag, and they're going to be like “Those aren't. Get out,” right? But with nacre, nacre is completely acellular, and so because of that, you can put it in anything. They put it in sheep, they put it in people and it's not rejected and it promotes integration into it. And it's 3,000 times harder. So it's like this really amazing implant material.
TSO: Her lab has used nacre to direct bone growth, which can help people retain bone density.
OLABISI: And what we're doing with bone is we're using seashell to try to micropattern bone so that it doesn't go where we don't want it to go when we use methods to cause bone growth.
TSO: Her lab has successfully caused bone growth in petri dishes, which she views with this
[sound of inverted microscope]
inverted microscope. She's also made strides in wound healing, which is impaired in space.
[sound of liquid nitrogen being pumped into tank]
OLABISI: So that noise is the liquid nitrogen being pumped into this cryostorage tank.
TSO: That's where all the cells are kept in suspended animation, which is like animal hibernation. The liquid nitrogen instantly freezes whatever it touches because it's -320 degrees Fahrenheit. Her lab took adult stem cells and insulinoma cells to make a major breakthrough in healing wounds.
OLABISI: So we used two different types of cells that are both really powerful wound healing agents. We put them in a hydrogel and we put that on wounds.
[sci fi music]
TSO: The average healing rate is 40 days with scar. Their result was amazing.
OLABISI: It healed in 14 days without scar. What we believe is that when we put the cells together, we primed these cells towards the wound healing, like the difference between Clark Kent's best friend and Superman. We think we really activated them to be super powerful cells.
TSO: The wound healing without scar worked in mice. So the next step is larger animals and then people. Those are just some of the incredible breakthroughs Ronke Olabisi is making at her lab at UC Irvine. We might see her in outer space someday, but for now, she's engineering tissues to make life better for humans in space and on Earth.
I'm Natalie Tso for The Lab Beat which is brought to you by the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering.
(Season 1, Episode 3)
 

David Kisailus is turning urine into medical-grade material for bone and teeth implants and water purification. Learn how Kisailus is making bone implants more affordable through this new process of producing calcium phosphate from urea. Kisailus, a UCI professor of materials science and engineering, is the director of the well-known Biomimetrics and Nanostructured Materials Lab.
Transcript:
[sci fi music]
NATALIE TSO, HOST: This is the Lab Beat, where we catch the pulse of cutting-edge labs at UC Irvine’s engineering school. I’m Natalie Tso.
[sound of toilet flusing]
Yes, that’s the sound of a toilet. We usually don’t want what’s flushed away, but UCI Professor of Materials Science and Engineering David Kisailus thought differently.
His research team is turning urine into material that can be used for teeth and bone implants.
DAVID KISAILUS: Where urine comes into play is that urine contains urea, and urea is a molecule that if you break it down using a catalyst, an enzyme called urease, urea will break into ammonia and CO2.
TSO: Their team engineered a yeast that breaks the urea down and triggers the creation of calcium phosphate. That’s the same material that makes up our bones and teeth. Now will there be any urine in the implants?
KISAILUS: First of all, when we did the experiment, the urine wasn’t made [chuckle], it was bought from a company. It was artificial urine. So it’s just an ammonia-based compound that we want. But at the end of the day, the urine doesn’t get into the material itself. The component urea from the urine goes into the cell, but what's pumped out is just pure calcium phosphate.
TSO:  Millions of Americans get bone grafts a year. They can cost thousands of dollars, so this new process will make those life-changing procedures more affordable.
KISAILUS: As our population ages, more and more people, including myself, I played sports my whole life, so I definitely will need an implant somewhere at some time in my life. You know, cost of materials will always play a factor in whether people can afford to have implants so I think by having a process where you can make calcium phosphate implant based materials at low cost, I think it will enable a broader swath of folks to be able to get these procedures done.
[sci fi music]
TSO:  He also explains another use for the calcium phosphate they make in their new process.
KISAILUS: It also happens to be a good scavenger of metals and flourine. So one of the issues we have in our society today is a lack of clean drinking water so if you can actually make materials that may be able to scavenge heavy metals or flourines, things that would negatively affect our health in drinking water, that also provides value.
TSO: UC Irvine Professor of Materials Science and Engineering David Kisailus is taking what’s flushed away
[sound of toilet flush]
to make more affordable bone implants and cleaner water.
I’m Natalie Tso, for The Lab Beat which is brought to you by the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering.
(Season 1, Episode 2)
 

Quinton Smith's 3D approach to stem cell engineering could revolutionize how we test drugs and do organ transplants. Learn about his innovative approach and why Popular Science named him a top 10 scientist on the cusp of changing the world in 2023. Smith is an  assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and the director of The Smith Lab @ UCI.
Transcript:
[sci fi music]
[sound of bioprinter]
NATALIE TSO, HOST: This is the Lab Beat where we catch the pulse of cutting-edge labs at UC Irvine’s engineering school.  I’m Natalie Tso.
Imagine if someone who needs a new liver could just print one with this 3D bioprinter using a sample of their own cells.  That’s the vision behind stem cell engineering.
Popular Science named Quinton Smith a scientist on the cusp of changing the world in 2023 because of his 3D approach to stem cell engineering. Smith is an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UC Irvine. What inspired him to get into this field?
SMITH: Science fiction. This idea that we can take any human cell in the body, reprogram it all the way to an embryonic state and create any cell type in the human body for regenerative medicine. I kind of envision like a world where maybe we don't need to take drugs, but maybe we can use the cell as the therapy.
TSO: This is how it’d work with a liver problem:
SMITH: Let's say my liver is failing, right. I take a biopsy of my own skin, reprogram those cells into an embryonic state, convert those cells to liver cells, mass produce those liver cells, use our 3D printer to organize those cells in the way our liver is structured. It has a beautiful hexagonal pattern and then retransplant that back into my body.
I think you now it's a little bit science fiction. You can actually see different shows using 3D printing, like Westworld is one of my favorite shows. But I think that’s feasible. I think that’s possible.
TSO: Ph.D. student Christopher Clark tells us more about that cool 3D bioprinter.
CHRISTOPHER CLARK: This is a Cellink BioX bioprinter with three extrusion heads. If we want to mimic the architecture of some parts of the human body, such as the alveoli of the lungs or the shape of a liver cell environment, we can use a bioprinter to print cells in confined geometries and in relations to other cells that we used to.
TSO: Smith’s team is using it to make mini livers and a key part of the body scientists have long struggled with – blood vessels.
SMITH:  We consider that to be the highway of life. Blood vessels are responsible for delivering nutrients, oxygen and removing waste.
TSO: Smith creates mini blood vessels on a chip about the size of a quarter. These organs-on-a-chip are a much better way to test drugs.
SMITH: Billions of dollars are spent towards drug development, and the traditional workhorse has been animal models.
TSO: But 90% of drugs that worked in mice fail in human trials
SMITH: I believe using these stem cells,  these human cells, we can reduce the costs of drug testing and maybe come up with even more efficient drugs that actually have profound effects on humans. We're not mice.
TSO: So when can we 3D print a human liver? His best guess is…
SMITH: Let's say 15 years, maybe 15 years…
TSO: But Smith is doing it on a small scale in his lab.
SMITH: We work with, let's say, a million cells. Our liver has 200 billion cells. So that's quite a scale up process to achieve but we have to start somewhere.
[sci fi music]
TSO: And while we wait for that 3D-printed liver, scientists are now making insulin cells from stem cells to cure diabetes.
SMITH:  The most exciting success has been the recent development of stem cell treatments for people with type 1 diabetes, a horrible autoimmune disease that kills the insulin-producing beta cells in your body. Well there have been techniques using stem cell biology to create functional beta cells and you can actually implant them back into someone’s body and instead of taking insulin injections, those implanted cells can respond to the diet that you have to create the perfect amount of insulin. So there’s been very promising clinical trials that have actually proven that we can take stem cells and cure diseases like type 1 diabetes.
TSO: That’s Quinton Smith, turning science fiction to reality at UC Irvine.
I’m Natalie Tso for The Lab Beat which is brought to you by the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering.
(Season 1, Episode 1)