Arumugam Manthiram (; born March 15, 1951) is an American materials scientist and engineer, best known for his identification of the polyanion class of lithium ion battery cathodes, understanding of how chemical instability limits the capacity of layered oxide cathodes, and technological advances in lithium sulfur batteries. He is a Cockrell Family Regents Chair in engineering, Director of the Texas Materials Institute, and the Director of the Materials Science and Engineering Program at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. Manthiram delivered the 2019 Nobel Lecture in Chemistry on behalf of Chemistry Laureate

John B. Goodenough John Bannister Goodenough ( ; born July 25, 1922) is an American materials scientist, a solid-state physicist, and a Nobel laureate in chemistry. He is a professor of Mechanical, Materials Science, and Electrical Engineering at the Universit ...

Early life and education

Manthiram was born in

Amarapuram, Tamil Nadu Amarapuram is a village in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. It is located at the banks of Karamanayar River in Thoothukudi District, about 15 km South of Thiruchendur Tiruchendur is a municipality located in Thoothukudi District, Tam ...

, a small village in southern India. He completed his B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry at

Madurai University Madurai ( , also , ) is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Madurai District. As of the 2011 census, it was the third largest Urban agglomeration i ...

. He then received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is a public technical university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. As one of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), it is recognized as an Institute of National Importance and has bee ...

Career

After working as a lecturer at

Madurai Kamaraj University Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) is a public state university located in Madurai city, in southern Tamil Nadu, India, established in 1966. MKU is one of the 15 universities in India with the University with Potential for Excellence status, wh ...

for four years, he joined

's lab as a Research Associate, first at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and then at the

. Manthiram joined the faculty of the

in 1991.

Research

Manthiram identified the polyanion class of cathode materials for

lithium ion batteries A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery which uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy. It is the predominant battery type used in portable consumer electronics and electric vehicles. It also see ...

, which are widely used in commercial applications. This is a class which includes

lithium iron phosphate Lithium iron phosphate or lithium ferro-phosphate (LFP) is an inorganic compound with the formula . It is a gray, red-grey, brown or black solid that is insoluble in water. The material has attracted attention as a component of lithium iron phosp ...

. He demonstrated that positive electrodes containing

polyanion Polyelectrolytes are polymers whose repeating units bear an electrolyte group. Polycations and polyanions are polyelectrolytes. These groups dissociate in aqueous solutions (water), making the polymers charged. Polyelectrolyte properties are th ...

s, e.g.,

sulfate The sulfate or sulphate ion is a polyatomic anion with the empirical formula . Salts, acid derivatives, and peroxides of sulfate are widely used in industry. Sulfates occur widely in everyday life. Sulfates are salts of sulfuric acid and many ...

s, produce higher voltages than oxides due to the

inductive effect In chemistry, the inductive effect in a molecule is a local change in the electron density due to electron-withdrawing or electron-donating groups elsewhere in the molecule, resulting in a permanent dipole in a bond. It is present in a σ (sigma ...

of the polyanion. These polyanion cathodes are also used in sodium ion batteries. Manthiram discovered that the capacity limitations of layered oxide cathodes is a result of chemical instability that can be understood based on the relative positions of the metal 3d band relative to the top of the oxygen 2p band. This discovery represents the theoretical underpinnings of the anion-redox energy storage mechanism and has had significant implications for the practically accessible compositional space of lithium ion batteries, as well as their stability from a safety perspective. He has identified the critical parameters needed for transitioning lithium sulfur batteries towards commercial use. Specifically, lithium sulfur batteries need to achieve a sulfur loading of >5 mg cm⁻², a carbon content of <5%, electrolyte-to-sulfur ratio of <5 μL mg⁻¹, electrolyte-to-capacity ratio of <5 μL (mA h)⁻¹, and negative-to-positive capacity ratio of <5 in pouch-type cells. Key technological advances for lithium sulfur batteries developed by Manthiram include the use of microporous carbon interlayers and the use of doped graphene sponge electrodes.

References

External links

Arumugam Manthiram at Google Scholar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manthiram, Arumugam University of Texas at Austin faculty American materials scientists 21st-century American engineers IIT Madras alumni Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Solid state chemists 1951 births Living people