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Arumugam Manthiram

George T. and Gladys H. Abell Endowed Chair of Engineering
Professor, Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering

Our use-inspired research is focused on the design and development of high-performance, affordable, supply-chain-friendly materials for electrochemical energy storage with a firm basic science understanding of the richness and complexities involved (see research and publications pages).

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A History of Excellence

  • Manthiram invented in the 1980s a path to use the cheapest metal iron in lithium-ion batteries as polyanion cathodes—93% of mining worldwide is iron. The discovery (i) opened the broad field of polyanion cathodes, including LiFePO4 (LFP), LVP, NVP, NVPF, etc. for lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries and (ii) identified the inductive effect caused by polyanions like sulfate and phosphate that enabled to increase the cell voltage with more stable lower-valent redox couples like Fe2+/3+. Polyanion cathodes enhance the thermal stability, safety, and cycle life of batteries due to the tightly bound oxygen in the covalently bonded polyanion groups and lower-valent redox couples. The attributes of iron (lowest cost) and polyanion (better safety) make iron-based cathodes the beloved in the industry. See https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-7753(89)80153-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15355-0.
  • Our group eliminated expensive and scarcely available cobalt in layered oxide cathodes used in lithium-ion batteries. By licensing our patents, TexPower EV Technologies in Houston, Texas, is engaged in manufacturing tons of cobalt-free cathodes: https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202002718.
  • Electrolytes are currently the major bottleneck for batteries. Our group is stabilizing lithium-based and sodium-based batteries with better safety through novel electrolyte development: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01469-y.
  • Our group is advancing the viability of affordable lithium-sulfur and sodium-sulfur batteries by stabilizing the electrode-electrolyte interfaces: https://doi.org/10.1039/D1EE01113H.
  • Our group has trained and mentored more than 300 students and postdoctoral researchers, including the graduation of 77 PhD students and 30 M.S. students. Among them, 60 are faculty and several hold leadership positions in industry around the world.
  • Manthiram delivered the 2019 Chemistry Nobel Prize Lecture on behalf of Professor John B. Goodenough. View the Youtube video here: https://youtu.be/Xlm-C-qr63Y.
  • Manthiram is ranked by ScholarGPS 69th for lifetime and 6th for the prior five years in the world across all fields and 5th for lifetime and 2nd for the prior five years in materials science and engineering. It is based on multi-level, quantitative ranking of scholars in terms of their productivity as well as the quality and impact of their scholarly work. ScholarGPS excludes self-citations and weighs each publication and citation by the number of authors. See https://scholargps.com/scholars/35091465231962/arumugam-manthiram.


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Updated on 10/23/2025