Laboratory for Strategic Materials

Our research group takes a combined theoretical and experimental approach to address the world major challenges, including growing demand for natural resources (mainly energy & materials) and anthropogenic environmental impacts, through enhancement of existing processes and development of new materials and production routes in various industrial sectors: energy, water, and metals. Our research lies at the intersection of “Process Engineering”, “Electrochemistry”, and “Materials Science”. Our research combines fundamental science and engineering principals to arrive at solutions for real world applications.

The first mission of our research program is “to develop innovative hydrometallurgical, supercritical, and electrochemical processes for extraction and recycling of strategic materials including REEs, PGMs, lithium, and iron”. The second mission of our group is “to develop game-changing processes and devices (e.g., batteries) to address the sustainability challenges in terms of energy, environment, and materials criticality”. The third mission of our group is “to design and fabricate advanced materials with controlled properties including hydrophobicity (non-wetting), scale-resistivity, transparency, and electrical properties".