Materials for Energy Innovation and Accessibility

Our group at MIT develops materials and systems that enable reliable, affordable, and accessible energy innovation. By understanding and harnessing chemical redox reactions across multiple length scales and at solid, liquid, and gas interfaces, we advance next-generation batteries, utilize the Earth’s subsurface as a natural reactor to produce chemicals, and enable efficient extraction of materials from rocks. We are proud to contribute to this transformative era of discovery and innovation, building on the legacy of scientific pioneers to make meaningful and lasting contributions to society through materials design and systems engineering.

As a materials science and engineering group, we follow MIT’s motto “Mens et Manus”—”mind and hand”. As scientists, we ask deep questions, stay curious and create new knowledge for the next generation. As engineers, we innovate and create, stay true to the global need, and when we make impactful discoveries, we translate them through the MIT entrepreneurship ecosystem.  

Research Areas

Theme 1: New Frontiers in Battery Materials and Chemistries

Transforming transportation, power grids, and industries requires the development of cost-effective batteries made from abundant and reliable elements within the critical materials supply chain. Our team applies the principles of physical and materials chemistry to design and optimize electrode materials for both lithium and sodium-based batteries. This effort combines state-of-the-art computational techniques, spanning ground and excited states, with advanced experimental tools, including electrochemistry, in situ and ex situ X-ray and neutron scattering, and electron microscopy. Through this integrated approach, we investigate phenomena across atomic, mesoscale, and device-level dimensions.At the core of our research are studies of redox mechanisms, chemomechanics, and interfacial charge transfer processes that govern electrochemical performance. The insights gained from these fundamental investigations guide materials design and engineering, enabling the discovery of next-generation battery materials that advance energy reliability and security for future technologies.

Theme 2: Electrochemical Tuning of Quantum Materials

Our group explores how electrochemistry can tune the properties of quantum materials for next-generation computing, sensing, and communication technologies. By electrically controlling ion insertion and removal at the atomic scale, we achieve reversible changes in magnetic, electronic, optical, and surface properties, accessing metastable quantum states that cannot be created through traditional synthesis. We focus on layered oxides and two-dimensional materials, combining electrochemical control with X-ray and neutron scattering, spectroscopy, and low-temperature measurements to probe structure and dynamics. Our goal is to reveal new principles of electrochemically driven quantum behavior and enable novel functional materials.

Theme 3: Earth as a Factory to Make Fuels and Industrial Chemicals

Our lab is developing the concept of the Earth’s subsurface as a natural factory for producing fuels and industrial chemicals. By applying principles of interfacial redox chemistry from battery and catalytic systems, we explore how iron-rich rocks can drive chemical reactions powered by geothermal heat and pressure. We have demonstrated hydrogen generation from water and invented a new process to produce ammonia using only water and nitrogen sources. Through techno-economic modeling and system-level design, we evaluate the efficiency, scalability, and industrial competitiveness of these geological processes as a foundation for next-generation chemical production.

Theme 4: Accelerating Material and Knowledge Discovery in Themes 1-3 through Automation, High-Throughput Experimentation and AI

Our lab combines autonomous high-throughput experimentation with artificial intelligence to accelerate the discovery of advanced materials and the optimization of chemical reactions. By integrating robotic synthesis and testing with computational modeling, Bayesian optimization, and predictive analytics, we efficiently explore vast chemical and structural phase spaces. This approach enables the identification of high-performance and accessible materials while revealing fundamental relationships among bulk, surface, and interfacial phenomena. Through this synergy of experimentation, computation, and data science, we aim to transform how materials are discovered and optimized for next-generation technologies in energy, chemical production, and mining.

Research Approaches

With applications mentioned above in mind, we seek and explore ideas to create new materials or engineer existing ones by manipulating their electron, spin, lattice, and orbital degree of freedom. We test these ideas using ground state and excited state calculations. We will use the results to design materials (both model systems and functional materials) and test with experiments (both at the material and device level). We will apply state-of-the-art synthesis techniques (e.g. solid-state synthesis and chemical vapor deposition), electron, optical and X-ray characterization techniques (e.g. high-resolution TEM and X-ray methods both at MIT and Synchrotron sources) and quantum mechanical calculations (e.g. DFT, OCEAN and physics-based high-throughput material screening). While the figure above depicts the overall scientific research approach in our group, discoveries at times are serendipitous and we aim to keep our eye for surprises and investigate them in a holistic manner.