In this episode we talk with Cate Levey about her unique career path that’s allowed her to work with and influence very diverse composite materials. Her ability to consider and influence nano-scale chemistry to control macro-scale properties has allowed her to contribute meaningfully to products as varied as building products and food. Join us to meet Cate and hear her story.
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Some chemists just see the world around them in a different way. Where you see a pen, they see the polymer structure of its plastic body and the complex formulation of the ink. Where you see a building, they see the composite materials that make it and think about how the nano-scale structure of those materials define their macroscopic properties. Where you see a juicy burger, they see the proteins and complex chemicals that make its taste and texture so attractive.
In a nutshell, this is how Cate Levey sees the world around her. It’s a fascinating perspective that has taken her professional path down some paths less traveled. Engineered wood products, plant-based meat products, and carbon-negative aggregate for concrete have nothing to do with each other if you don’t look at things the way she does. To her they are they are all composite materials, where understanding and altering the chemistry at the nano, or sub-nano scale allows her to alter macroscopic functional properties to make amazing things happen. It’s where chemistry meets material science and where the science can really change the world around us.
Cate explains some of her groundbreaking work, but also offers a fresh perspective on how to pursue a career in science, following a true passion, and taking unbeaten paths.
Cate Levey00:06
What I do is make generally like composite materials. So you're making an engineered material, which is a combination of other materials. It's not just manipulating the chemistry. It's also manipulating all of these other parameters. And it's also manipulating the process. Now I'm doing construction materials, but I'm making concrete, and I'm making aggregates, which is like the gravel and sand that goes into concrete. And it sounds weird to say, but I was on the material science team at Impossible Foods. And we were also manipulating like looking at all the aspects of what makes a burger delicious.
Paolo 00:49
The comparison you've just heard may seem a bit strange, but Cate Levey might be the person best equipped to connect these dots. She has worked in both areas over the course of her career, and she's proven she can make a huge impact on the world, no matter the setting. In this season four episode of Bringing Chemistry to Life, we speak with another member of Chemical and Engineering News' 2022 Talented 12 about their work and trends in their field. I'm your host Paolo Braiuca from Thermo Fisher Scientific. We began by asking Cate about her first job and how it catalyzed her incredible career.
Cate Levey01:29
The first job that I got out of college was at Georgia Pacific and I was making plywood and particleboard. And so OSB - oriented strand board technically - like chipboard. So we were making polymers for bonding that board together. So we're making primarily UF resin, urea formaldehyde resins, and we would make boards and break them, do all sorts of torture tests on them, do accelerated aging tests. What will happen in 20 years of like really intense bad conditions for plywood, tear them apart. And you could see differences from how you manipulated the polymer on the very large scale across, you know, accelerated aging test, or you aged it for 20 years in 24 hours. And that was what got me interested in the intersection of chemistry and material science.
Paolo 02:32
And you have an interesting resume, because you're mentioning your first experience , then you went into the food industry. Now, you know, you're in the sort of construction materials type of industry. Yeah, it's fascinating. It's very diverse.
Cate Levey02:46
That's right. Across many different types of industries, across many types of materials, we still have this intersection of chemistry and material science. What I do is make generally like composite materials. So, you're making an engineered material, which is a combination of other materials. And you can manipulate, like, say the molecular length of the polymer, and then the secondary phase. It's not just manipulating the chemistry; it's also manipulating all of these other parameters. And it's also manipulating the process. The process is super important to the material properties of the final product. So you can have a target, and say we want a board with this property, and that property is something that the polymer doesn't have in the wood by itself does not have. But by being able to optimize the two together, not only each individual product, but also the process of how they're combined and how they play with each other. You're able to engineer something that has the target property. Now I'm doing construction materials, but I'm making concrete, and I'm making aggregates, which is like the gravel and sand that goes into concrete. And it sounds weird to say, but I was on the material science team at Impossible Foods. And we were also manipulating, like looking at all of the aspects of what makes a burger delicious. And what makes a burger like juicy and bouncy as you bite into it, and tender. And like what are all of the underlying attributes that cause it to be delicious? And then looking at how we could select ingredients from the natural world to put them together to get those attributes. And then how do we carefully select the order in which you add those ingredients, or how much time it takes for those ingredients to mettle together to create that final experience. The attributes like that to create this experience of the texture of the burger.
Paolo 04:59
It is fascinating to me because you're basically on the end of the applied science, right, in the material, in material science. So, you're really getting to the very last step of producing something that is get used in some sort of real-world applications. So, you know, where does the chemistry and where does the engineering start? You know, it feels like you need to have a very special mind.
Cate Levey05:22
I think that's one of the things that I really like about this intersection is that it’s so multidisciplinary. And there's so many choices of where you want to start to explore as a scientist. The opportunity space is enormous. And in that there's a lot of creativity. And I think that's one of the parts that I like. I get to look across everything from like, when the polymer’s synthesized all the way to like, what was the mixing time on the mixer at the final step. I think a lot of times, scientists can get stuck in like a very small space for a very long time. And if you have a hypothesis that like this space needs to be optimized, and you're going toward that and it's a dead end, there's so many other angles from which to approach and possibly answer the question or solve the problem.
Paolo 06:21
And it's actually interesting when you say, because I know a lot of people in science have been stuck on a problem for their whole career, right? Pretty much. It gets super boring, in my opinion, but apparently is not for them. Are you a person who gets bored easily? Is it why you kind of enjoy, this sort of a freedom to explore?
Cate Levey06:43
I think the thing that I enjoy about science is creativity, and the ability to make an impact. I think those are the two things that motivate me. I'm very motivated by the big picture. The way that I see chemistry is not things at a nanometer or angstrom scale, I think about it as being a way to explain all of the phenomenon that I see in my everyday life. And so I think that's what makes this a really, this career a really good fit for me.
Paolo 07:17
Are you the kind of person who walks around the world and you know, you watch an object and you just start imagining how it's made, you know, how it's chemically put together and stuff?
Cate Levey07:26
Yeah, I'm literally I'm in a conference room right now. And I look at the chairs, and I think like, “Oh chemist was involved in making the chairs, right, and the table, and the projectors sitting next to me.”
Paolo 07:39
Yeah, it starts it starts being clear in my mind. And I'd like to know how you got there. Right. So, let's go back, you know, how you said you were engineering your sort of way into your, after your first job in the plywood industry, you know, in the concrete industry and say, hey, I, you know, you kind of made your way into Impossible Foods, you know, and then eventually to Blue Planet.
Cate Levey08:07
Yes, I'll back up even another step or two and start at the beginning. I knew that I wanted to work in research and development. That was clear to me because I am very motivated by the big picture, and I wanted to be part of creating things that were out there in the world that people were interacting with. Around the time that I was about to graduate, but still in school, I had an internship at the Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta, and I was working with a lot of biotech companies. And I expected to not like this job. It was an office job, like at a cubicle. I wanted to be in a lab, working, like doing chemistry, and I got the internship that I happen to get was an office job. And I was like, “Okay, this is what I got and go with it. Oh, learned a bunch.” So, I worked with all these biotech companies and one of the big things that I learned was that a lot of job creation is at small and medium sized companies. I also learned that it was sort of more about the types of challenges that small businesses face and just sort of was opened up to that in a way that I hadn't appreciated previously, because when you go to the store, you're usually paying most attention to the big names. So that was background that I had. Then I got the job making plywood and chipboard and resins and polymers. So, I had given myself a bit of time to be happy that I had a job, take some time off from job searching, but I knew that because the contract was going to be ending at some point that I would need to job search again. And I didn't exactly know what industry I wanted to go into. At this time, this was when the world, or especially the U.S., was starting to realize that our food system was really broken and that we needed to have some systemic change to improve nutrition for a lot of people that obesity was really high, that the choices that people had to food were subpar and not setting people up for good lives. Everyone who was talking about this and was worried about this, their proposal was that everyone should shop at farmer's markets. And I lived in the South, the American South. I knew that wasn't a realistic solution. The solutions weren't going to reach the people who really needed them, like they might reach some people. But the people who really needed better food weren't going to be impacted by these proposals. So at this time, I read an article called something like how science is engineering healthy junk food. It was in The Atlantic, and it was basically saying exactly this. And it was making the proposal that a way that we could make a bigger impact faster would be through food science. So first of all, the problem isn't that people don't have enough food. The problem isn't that food is so called, like healthy or unhealthy, it's that the food should have nutrition beyond just the calories that it has, right? Like when you eat something, it shouldn't just have calories, it should have micronutrients, like vitamins, minerals, it should have fiber, it should have all these other things. So, they were proposing that you could take the things that people are already eating and make them more nutritious through food science. And that idea really appealed to me and I started looking at companies who might be able to do this. When I found Impossible Foods, it was this really nice intersection of like, public health, sustainability, and chemistry. And that I decided was where I wanted to place myself.
Paolo 12:31
It's an interesting story and highly unusual. So, I applaud you. So, you had a stint at Impossible Food. And you know, the way you speak about and what you already told me, you know, it was probably a great experience for you. So, what why did you decide to leave? When was there an opportunity, there was a period, and you know, your curiosity took you in another place?
Cate Levey12:54
Let's see, probably about three years ago, at this point, I was starting to see a lot of government reports and talk in the climate space about how carbon capture and carbon removal were now absolutely necessary to meet our climate targets. And I was also part of this online community that had almost everyone who was working on carbon capture and carbon removal. And at the time, I estimated there were probably only a few hundred scientists working on carbon capture and carbon removal. And all of these government reports were talking about it like "Oh, it'll just exist in the future." And I was looking at these assumptions written by people who weren't scientists and didn't know how long it takes to develop ideas like this. And I was saying “This doesn't the scale does not match up.” And so, I decided that I wanted to pursue like carbon capture carbon removal next. And when I found Blue Planet, it was clear that this was the place for me. It was their technology has a ton of advantages over other people's technology. They just invented an ambient temperature version of carbon capture, which was absolutely groundbreaking to be able to do it at ambient temperature. And there were a lot of other advantages to the process. They upcycle waste materials, so it's not only a carbon capture solution, it's also a circular economy solution. And they're getting their raw materials for the process from waste someone else's waste stream.
Paolo 14:53
Yeah, Blue Planet is incredibly exciting, right? I mean, we are speaking about carbon negative concrete. And maybe the chemistry of cement might feel a bit, you know, simplistic, but I'm sure there's a lot of complexity there. And I know there's a lot of proprietary information, so you'll be limiting what you can tell me, but I'll let you start from wherever you want.
Cate Levey15:15
So Blue Planet makes carbon negative concrete. And we do that by storing CO2 per permanently and safely in mineral form. So, in the rocks and gravel and sand that make up concrete. It depends on exact concrete mix, but roughly 70% sand and gravel, and somewhere around like 10 to 15% cement, and then some water somewhere in there. What Blue Planet is doing is replacing the aggregate with carbon negative aggregate. So, basically synthetic limestone. We have a process that takes CO2 and mineralizes it to turn it into a rock which then is basically permanently and safely sequestered as a solid and stored in concrete. This allows us to have a product which is really unique amongst other carbon capture and carbon removal companies to have a product that you can sell. And we think that we can sequester gigatons of CO2 a year by doing this. So, the total concrete aggregate market globally is about 55 billion tons, or gigatons, right. So the order of magnitude is at the correct scale to make the impact that we need for CO2, which is that we need to remove, capture, or sequester on the gigaton scale.
Paolo 16:59
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Cate Levey17:34
How do we do that, so we have a CO2 in that calcium carbonate we need to add a calcium and alkalinity, which in this case is in the form of oxygen, O2 minus. To get the calcium carbonate we take a circular process. So, we have a carbon capture solvent that we use which is a salt based ionic solution, ammonium chloride. And that basically carbon capture solvent is recycled in a circular manner throughout our process so that we don't have to input any chemicals and we aren't having any additional carbon impact from that, it's circular. The process is circular, so you can start anywhere, I'll start at what we call the reformation step where we are reforming our carbon capture solution. So, we contact some what we call geomass, or waste material, which in this case we use crushed up concrete which can be either like the returned concrete or crushed concrete from a demolition project.
Paolo 18:50
This would usually go to landfill, right? So this is really waste material?
Cate Levey18:54
So it's a waste material. We contact that with our carbon capture solution. And we're able to extract or dissolve calcium and alkalinity from that. So now we have a carbon capture solution that is containing calcium and alkalinity. And we also have this solid that's gone through, this geomass solid, that's gone through our process and had the calcium and alkalinity extracted from it. We actually are able to then sell this, use it, in concrete again because it's upcycled by going through our process. So we take something that was, could only be used in very, very low-quality applications, or in some cases it's not used at all, and now it can be used for higher quality applications. So that is upcycling the, we call it upcycled concrete aggregates, that we can sell. So, we have to process the two products from this first step in our process. The carbon capture solvent that has calcium and alkalinity is then contacted with CO2. When the CO2 gas is in contact with the liquid that contains calcium and alkalinity, you precipitate out calcium carbonate, CaCl3, and then the spent carbon capture solution goes back to the first step. And we take the calcium carbonate, and we make that into aggregates, rocks, and sand, which then go into concrete. And the part of the process that I work on is how to turn that precipitated calcium carbonate that we made in our process into strong products, which is something that is a pretty new space, and has been really interesting for me to work on mineralization.
Paolo 20:57
It's fantastic. It's elegant, right? It's circular, as you say. It's such a brilliant idea. And you said you focus on you know, this solid, solid phase basically, right? I guess what you are looking into is sort of crystalline forms, or whatever, whatever is, you know, studying the solid form. Because I guess that is what will give the, you know, the structural parameters, right to the final material, isn't it?
Cate Levey21:26
Exactly, yeah. So calcium carbonate has many different polymorphs or crystal structures. And when we are trying to take something that's a precipitate. So yeah, we get kind of a slurry, right? A solid that's just been precipitated, suspended in solution. And the projects that I'm working on are around how to turn that slurry into a strong final product, a strong rock that can be used as an aggregate and concrete. So, we're making not just permanently sequestered calcium carbonate for which just the powder that like slurry would be enough. We're also making it into a strong usable product. And that's a big material science question.
Paolo 22:15
And this is immediately evident, right? For everything we have discussed so far in how you, you know, you can use a lot of different parameters. And you know, and can be, you know, is the chemistry itself, what is the process that you use, and, you know, you can immediately see how this can be at play at play here. It's really fascinating. I guess you have, in this case, which probably doesn't apply necessarily to the Impossible Foods, for instance, case, right? You must have an incredibly difficult economics to meet, right? I mean, you know, cement, or concrete in general is a relatively low-cost material, even though I'm sure you have like some high-tech stuff that is more expensive. But are you guys close enough that does this make economic sense? Can you compete with a sort of traditional sort of linear rather than circular product?
Cate Levey23:04
People will pay a lot for carbon negative concrete. If they're trying to build a building, the cement is, and the concrete are going to be a big carbon footprint. And we are able to provide them concrete that's carbon neutral, or carbon negative. And so the value is not just from making aggregate, it's also from the offer of being able to provide carbon negative or carbon neutral products.
Paolo 23:45
And there is this magnificent benefit of this being you know, you mentioned, the process is basically just ambient temperature, right? So you know, if you think about how cement is done with extremely high temperature, a lot of energy that goes into it, right, even besides the carbon release, that is obviously an addition negative effect. This has the potential to completely revolutionize the sort of construction industry. Because you also have the scale, you know, the order of magnitude and scale you're working on is yeah, it's in the right ballpark, right. So it's, this seems really real. So do you think this is going to be the cement of the future?
Cate Levey24:23
Let me add something there. We're not actually doing anything with cement. So, we are making aggregates, which is the majority of the mass, the weight of concrete. This means because we're just creating rocks, our technology is compatible with any other future technology that might come out for green cement. We also know that the construction industry is conservative. And so this also is a strength that we can use our aggregates with existing concrete mixes. It doesn't require any replacement of cement. Architects and building engineers are very conservative because they don't want their building to be an experimental building. Because what if something happens down the line? So, our aggregates are so carbon negative that even though today, today, there aren't any replacements for cement, that are CO2 free, there are ways to reduce the amount of cement that you use. But today, there isn't anything commercially available, that would be a cement, a green cement. So we can use that, say the cement is emitting this much CO2. And if like this is neutral, and if we, if our aggregate is like this much negative, carbon negative that can basically create a total concrete mix that is negative or neutral, depending on the mix.
Paolo 26:04
And any of the, you know, there's a bit less commercial burden, because this is certainly less risky, right? Or less experimental for the material to, for a sort of short-term introduction into the market. You know, now I get it. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. These are interesting. Do you think, as I said, I go back to my question originally, do you think the, you know, the concrete of the future will be based on this type of technology?
Cate Levey26:29
Yeah, I think this is one of the, I researched a lot before I joined Blue Planet. I think this is one of the best, or the best answer for carbon capture and carbon removal.It's permanently stored in a safe manner. And you're making a product that can be sold as a profit. So it's a sustainable business model, just by itself doesn't make any assumptions about regulations or anything. So it can also be globally scaled and available, right? Because it is a global problem, we need this solution to be available to people all over the world do global outreach and have inclusive global solutions that will bring everybody across many different countries into solving this problem. We have the raw materials coming from every country across the world, there's always concrete everywhere, with the global living standards going up, there's tons more building, it can be deployed everywhere, and the more places that we are able to include in the solution, the bigger the impact is going to be.
Paolo 27:43
And challenging problems are what excites you and drive you, right? I saw that's what gets you out of bed in the morning. Well, Cate, it's been it's been a fascinating sort of story and I, you know, it's, it's really exciting to see what you guys are working on. And I'm sure that I keep an eye on the evolution of this thing. It's, you know, as we get to the end of our chats, you know, there's always a final question. It's always the same in my interviews, which is, you know, if you look at your sort of path so far, what would be the recommendation, you will have, you know, a piece of advice for somebody who's just starting in their career, you know, in a scientific field in chemistry, or material science specifically, or whatever you like?
Cate Levey28:27
One of the more important pieces of advice that I like to tell people is that you should really consider and look at going to small and medium sized companies. I think that a lot of people overlook those because they're not the first ones that you think of applying to, like I was talking about in my first round of trying to apply for jobs. But they are doing some really, really interesting work. And there tend to be more positions available at these companies. And the other aspect is that you're going to get to learn and grow a lot more at a small company. You're going to get to wear more hats because there aren't as many people as possible and I think for someone earlier in their career, they're going to get a lot more experience if you work at a smaller company because everyone has to participate more in other parts of the business. Whereas in a large company where everyone's an extreme specialist, you might only learn one skill. If you go to a small and medium sized company, you're going to have the opportunity to go across what would be many jobs at a larger company and learn many more skills, get more exposure, also to other aspects of the business beyond the one that you're in. Just there's a lot of advantages. I think, especially for someone early in their career, to go to a small or medium sized company. The other piece of advice I would give, is that a lot of like, very small companies don't have, like, dedicated people to like, write job postings and post them. So like, if it's a small company, and it depends on the type of small company, right? But if it's a small company, like it's worth sending them an email and seeing whether they have a need for someone. Obviously, read it first and see if they would even hire someone with your skill set. but like if you think it's a good fit with your skills, email them with your resume and sort of write an email about why you think you could add to their company. A lot of times they do have need, and they just haven't gotten around to writing a job posting, going through all the steps of approval and budgeting and whatever and like posting it and reading all of the resumes that come in, like it's a lot of burden for a small company. So, it's worth reaching out. Because in many cases, there are job openings that maybe aren't posted. And that's something that I felt very fortunate to learn early in my career, that internship I talked about. So that's something that I also like to pass along to more recent grads.
Paolo 31:43
That was Cate Levey, Scientist at Blue Planet Systems, and one of the Chemical and Engineering News' Talented 12. Thanks for joining us for this season four episode of Bringing Chemistry to Life and keep an ear out for more. As usual, I close recommending you check your podcast app. In the episode notes, you'll find a URL where you can access Cate's book, video, podcasts, and other contents recommendation. If you want to know more about fighting against thermodynamics, you should check it out. And you can also register for a free Bringing Chemistry to Life t-shirt. This episode was produced by Sarah Briganti, Matt Ferris, and Matthew Stock. See you next time.