As the most abundant engineered material on Earth, concrete is essential to the physical infrastructure of all modern societies. There are no known materials that can replace concrete in terms of cost and availability. There are, however, environmental concerns, including the significant CO2 emissions associated with cement production, which create new incentives for university–industry collaboration to address concrete sustainability. Herein, we examine one aspect of this challenge—the translation of scientific understanding at the microscale into industrial innovation at the macroscale—by seeking improvements in cement-paste processing, performance, and sustainability through control of the mechanisms that govern microstructure development. Specifically, we consider modeling, simulation, and experimental advances in fracture, dissolution, precipitation, and hydration of cement paste precursors, as well as properties of the hardened cement paste within concrete. The aim of such studies is to optimize the chemical reactivity, mechanical performance, and other physical properties of cement paste to enable more sustainable processing routes for this ubiquitous material.

In the past few decades, major improvements in electrical standards have come from quantum solid-state physics. The discovery of the Josephson effect and the integer quantum Hall effect (QHE) led to the realization of reproducible and universal voltage and resistance standards directly linked to Planck’s constant and the electron charge. In efforts to further improve the dissemination of quantum standards, graphene could be crucial for the development of a more convenient resistance standard that is able to benefit from recent helium-free cryogenic techniques. This fascinating material could also contribute to a revolutionary revision of the Système International of units by enabling convincing universality tests of the QHE. This article reports on metrological investigations of the QHE in graphene, with accuracy down to 10−10, demonstrating that a quantum resistance standard more robust than existing GaAs-based ones can be developed. The various results highlight the impacts of graphene quality and graphene–substrate interactions on quantization accuracy and the advantage for metrology of fabrication techniques that are scalable over large sizes such as epitaxial growth or chemical vapor deposition, although no single technique is yet clearly superior for achieving the final goal of an improved quantum standard for resistance.

Energy-critical elements (ECEs) are chemical and isotopic species that are required for emerging sustainable energy sources and that might encounter supply disruptions. An oft-cited example is the rare-earth element neodymium used in high-strength magnets, but elements other than rare earths, for example, helium, are also considered ECEs. The relationships among abundance, markets, and geopolitics that constrain supply are at least as complex as the electronic and nuclear attributes that make ECEs valuable. In an effort to ensure supply for renewable-energy technologies, science decision makers are formulating policies to mitigate supply risk, sometimes without full view of the complexity of important factors, such as unanticipated market responses to policy, society’s needs for these elements in the course of basic research, and a lack of substitutes for utterly unique physical properties. This article places ECEs in historical context, highlights relevant market factors, and reviews policy recommendations made by various studies and governments. Actions taken by the United States and other countries are also described. Although availability and scarcity are related, many ECEs are relatively common yet their supply is at risk. Sustainable development requires informed action and cooperation between governments, industries, and researchers.