Arumugam Manthiram

Arumugam Manthiram (MUN-thee-rum;[6] 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. Manthiram delivered the 2019 Nobel Lecture in Chemistry on behalf of Chemistry Laureate John B. Goodenough.[7][3]

Arumugam Manthiram
Born	(1951-03-15) March 15, 1951 Amarapuram, Tamil Nadu, India[1]
Education	Madurai University (BS,MS) Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (PhD)
Known for	Lithium ion battery
Awards	Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (2014)[2] Fellow, Electrochemical Society (2011)[3] Henry B. Linford Award for Distinguished Teaching, Electrochemical Society (2020) Fellow, Materials Research Society (2016)[4] Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (2015) Fellow, Royal Society of Chemistry (2015)
Scientific career
Fields	Materials Science
Institutions	Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore Madurai Kamaraj University University of Oxford University of Texas at Austin
Doctoral advisor	J. Gopalakrishnan[5]

Early life and education

Manthiram was born in Amarapuram, Tamil Nadu, a small village in southern India.[1] He completed his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemistry at Madurai University. He then received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Career

After working as a lecturer at Madurai Kamaraj University for four years, he joined John B. Goodenough's lab as a Research Associate, first at Oxford University and then at the University of Texas at Austin. Manthiram joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin in 1991.

Research

Manthiram identified the polyanion class of cathode materials for lithium ion batteries, which are widely used in commercial applications.[8][9] This is a class which includes lithium iron phosphate. He demonstrated that positive electrodes containing polyanions, e.g., sulfates, produce higher voltages than oxides due to the inductive effect of the polyanion. These polyanion cathodes are also used in sodium ion batteries.[10]

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.[11][12][13] This discovery 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.[14][15] 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.[14] Key technological advances for lithium sulfur batteries developed by Manthiram include the use of microporous carbon interlayers[16] and the use of doped graphene sponge electrodes.[17]

References

1. "Professor Arumugam Manthiram Delivered the Nobel Prize Lecture". Dinamalar.
2. "Arumugam Manthiram Elected as a Fellow of AAAS". Texas Materials Institute.
3. "Manthiram Presents Goodenough's Nobel Lecture". Electrochemical Society.
4. "Three Indian American Professors Named 2016 Materials Research Society Fellows". India West.
5. "Arumugam Manthiram". Chemistry Tree.
6. Arumugam Manthiram, Challenges and Opportunities of Electrical Energy Storage Technologies) on YouTube
7. "John B. Goodenough Nobel Lecture". Nobel Prize.
8. Manthiram, A.; Goodenough, J. B. (1989). "Lithium insertion into Fe₂(SO₄)₃ frameworks". Journal of Power Sources. 26 (3–4): 403–408. Bibcode:1989JPS....26..403M. doi:10.1016/0378-7753(89)80153-3.
9. Manthiram, A.; Goodenough, J. B. (1987). "Lithium insertion into Fe₂(MO₄)₃ frameworks: Comparison of M = W with M = Mo". Journal of Solid State Chemistry. 71 (2): 349–360. doi:10.1016/0022-4596(87)90242-8.
10. Masquelier, Christian; Croguennec, Laurence (2013). "Polyanionic (Phosphates, Silicates, Sulfates) Frameworks as Electrode Materials for Rechargeable Li (or Na) Batteries". Chemical Reviews. 113: 6552–6591. doi:10.1021/cr3001862.
11. Chebiam, R. V.; Kannan, A. M.; Prado, F.; Manthiram, A. (2001). "Comparison of the chemical stability of the high energy density cathodes of lithium-ion batteries". Electrochemistry Communications. 3: 624–627. doi:10.1016/S1388-2481(01)00232-6.
12. Chebiam, R. V.; Prado, F.; Manthiram, A. (2001). "Soft Chemistry Synthesis and Characterization of Layered Li_1-xNi_1-yCo_yO_2-δ (0 ≤ x ≤ 1 and 0 ≤ y ≤ 1)". Chemistry of Materials. 13: 2951–2957. doi:10.1021/cm0102537.
13. Manthiram, Arumugam (2020). "A reflection on lithium-ion battery cathode chemistry". Nature Communications. 11. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-15355-0.
14. Bhargav, Amruth; Jiarui, He (2020). "Lithium-Sulfur Batteries: Attaining the Critical Metrics". Joule. 4: 285–291. doi:10.1016/j.joule.2020.01.001.
15. Manthiram, Arumugam; Fu, Yongzhu; Chung, Sheng-Heng; Zu, Chenxi; Su, Yu-Sheng (2014). "Rechargeable Lithium–Sulfur Batteries". Chemical Reviews. 114: 11751–11787. doi:10.1021/cr500062v.
16. Su, Yu-Sheng; Manthiram, Arumugam (2012). "Lithium–sulphur batteries with a microporous carbon paper as a bifunctional interlayer". Nature Communications. 3: 1166. doi:10.1038/ncomms2163.
17. Zhou, Guangmin; Paek, Eunsu; Hwang, Gyeong; Manthiram, Arumugam (2015). "Long-life Li/polysulphide batteries with high sulphur loading enabled by lightweight three-dimensional nitrogen/sulphur codoped graphene sponge". Nature Communications. 6: 7760. doi:10.1038/ncomms8760.

External links

Arumugam Manthiram at Google Scholar