Jodie Lutkenhaus, professor of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, pursues diverse research interests spanning redox-active polymers, energy storage, polyelectrolytes, nanocomposites, and thin films and coatings, with a focus on developing redox-active polymers for energy storage and smart coatings. Her Welch Foundation funding supports her work with polymer batteries.
“Our goal is to develop organic, metal-free batteries from abundant materials that are easily recyclable,” she explained
Dr. Lutkenhaus studies polymers that are electrochemically active with fast charge transfer during redox events. This property makes these polymers excellent candidates for materials used in fast-charging, portable electronic devices.
While potentially intriguing, creating efficient polymer batteries must overcome the challenge that they are typically poor at storing and exchanging electrons.
“Redox polymers are electrochemically active and can store charge, but they aren’t as efficient at it as traditional metal-based batteries,” she said. “Our group is digging into how charge is stored and transferred in these materials to understand how to address the rate-limiting issues of using soft organic materials.”
Her research uses Electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (QCMD) techniques to detect nanogram-level changes in mass in real time. This allows her team to track ions moving in and out of the polymers, a process difficult to observe by other means.
“The answers have been surprising,” she said. “We’ve learned that these ions carry solvents as they move in and out. We are encouraged because this information helps explain the rate-limiting steps within redox-active polymers and gives us a new tool in designing the next generation.”
Working with colleague and Welch Chair Karen Wooley, the two demonstrated that glutamic acid could be used to make batteries—the first fully biodegradable protein battery in 2019. More recently, one of Dr. Lutkenhaus’ foci has been on air batteries.
“Air is free,” she noted. Her team is experimenting with reducing oxygen with air on one side of the battery and using electrochemistry on the other to provide high-density storage.
They also aim to develop batteries that can function in extremely low-temperature environments, such as the Arctic, as soft materials can move more easily when cold. If successful, flexible polymer batteries could have biomedical applications as well.
A Texas native growing up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Dr. Lutkenhaus studied chemical engineering at The University of Texas at Austin before earning a Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completing a postdoc at University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 2010, she moved from Yale University to Texas A&M.
“Coming back to Texas let me plant roots and give back to my home state,” she said. “Here, Welch Foundation grants provide the type of continuous funding that lets me explore new directions and develop interesting new approaches.”
Among her many hats, she serves as Associate Dean for Research, Texas A&M College of Engineering and Associate Agency Director, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station.
*Photo by Texas A&M Engineering