Penn Engineering Awards 2025 Y-Prize to CarboWells

Source: https://almanac.upenn.edu/articles/penn-engineering-awards-2025-y-prize-to-carbowells Parent: https://almanac.upenn.edu/latest-issue

CarboWells has received the top award in the 2026 Y-Prize, Penn’s annual innovation competition that challenges students to imagine powerful real-world applications for emerging technologies invented at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Y-Prize invites interdisciplinary teams from across Penn to compete by developing compelling business plans built around early-stage technologies from Penn Engineering researchers. The competition, now in its second decade, is jointly sponsored by the William and Phyllis Mack Institute for Innovation Management, Penn Engineering, Venture Lab, and the Penn Center for Innovation, and is designed to cultivate entrepreneurial thinking, collaboration and commercial strategy among students.

This year’s competition revolved around a cutting-edge material: 3D-printed, carbon-capturing concrete structures, a breakthrough approach to construction materials that can both form strong, self-supporting geometries and actively capture and store carbon dioxide, a critical step in addressing the environmental footprint of global building practices.

Developed by Shu Yang, the Joseph Bordogna Professor and chair of materials science and engineering, and colleagues in her lab, this technology combines advanced 3D printing with sustainable concrete formulations to create geometries that maximize carbon dioxide absorption without sacrificing strength or durability. Students were tasked with conceiving novel commercial or social applications for this sustainable construction material, imagining how it could reshape the way we build for the future while helping mitigate climate change.

After rigorous rounds of proposal submissions, expert review, and finalist pitches, CarboWells emerged as this year’s top honoree, earning the team the $15,000 Y-Prize grand award to turn their idea into reality. The team included Yash Iyer, W’29; Ronith Lahoti, CBE’29, C’29; Bhuranyu Mahajan, W’29; Yuki Qian, MSE’29, C’29; and Ali Altan Yilmaz, MSE’29, C’29.

With an estimated two million abandoned oil wells across the United States—including roughly 350,000 in Pennsylvania—aging infrastructure poses a significant environmental threat, as deteriorating concrete plugs can crack over time, allowing methane and other harmful gases to leak into soil and contaminate groundwater. While governments have committed billions of dollars to remediation, traditional plugging materials remain vulnerable to degradation.

“CarboWells is a 3D-printed, carbon-capturing concrete oil well-plugging service,” said Mr. Lahoti. “We replace ordinary Portland cement with Dr. Yang’s advanced cementitious technology to deliver higher strength, greater longevity and significantly lower gas permeability, reducing long-term remediation costs for the industry.”

The team’s plug incorporates diatomaceous earth, a naturally porous material that absorbs carbon dioxide; as CO2 reacts within the concrete, it strengthens the structure over time. Inspired by pressure-distributing patterns found in nature, the team’s internal design further resists cracking, resulting in a longer-lasting, more secure seal for aging wells that reduces the risk of future leakage.

“Penn Engineering taught me to think like a problem solver, not just someone who finds answers,” said Mr. Lahoti. “Courses like CBE 1600 pushed me to see challenges at every scale, from large industrial systems to nanoscale innovations, and that mindset shaped how we approached Y-Prize. The support of faculty mentors like Dr. Osuji and Dr. Grundy was instrumental in refining our idea, and the collaborative spaces in Amy Gutmann Hall gave us a place to build, test, and iterate. Penn Engineering didn’t just strengthen my technical skills; it made me a more entrepreneurial leader.”

In addition to the winning team, the 2026 Y-Prize Grand Finale featured three exceptional groups who presented bold visions for applying the carbon-capturing concrete technology:

• Aeronyx—3D-printed TPMS concrete modules that replace plastic packing in scrubbers while integrating carbon capture to boost longevity and lower maintenance costs. The team included Sarah Ling, M&T’29; Pritika Kharkwal, W’29; Roy Kim, MSE’29; Richard Zhu, M&T’29; and Ajay Panday, M&T’29.
• HAVEN—A customizable concrete wave-energy dissipator that protects shorelines while fostering ecological growth. The team included Neha Bachu, MEAM’29, C’29; Andrew Luo, M&T’29; Varun Sridhar, M&T’29; and Shiven Taneja, M&T’29.
• Lattica—Carbon-capturing, 3D-printed façade panels for sustainable construction envelopes in data centers. The team included Dhairya Ameria, GEng’27; Melissa Liu, W’26, C’26; and Vicky Zolotar, MSE’26.

Each of this year’s teams showcased how technology and creative student entrepreneurship from Penn Engineering can be reframed into vibrant commercial and social innovations.