What does it take to power a sustainable energy future? For Chibueze Amanchukwu (Neubauer Family Assistant Professor in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Faculty Co-Director, AI + Science) the answer begins at the molecular level. Amanchukwu’s lab focuses on one of the foundational challenges in the clean energy transition: how to develop battery technologies that are safer, cheaper, and more sustainable than today’s lithium-ion systems. His work in this field has earned him a 2026 Sloan Research Fellowship, a two-year, $75,000 award recognizing outstanding early-career researchers whose work demonstrates exceptional creativity and promise.

With support from the Sloan Fellowship, Amanchukwu plans to continue exploring the electrode-electrolyte interface, where the chemistry that determines battery performance occurs, by developing new sensing technologies capable of capturing what happens there in high resolution. The ability to observe these processes in real time could open new windows into how batteries charge and discharge and inform the design of next-generation materials.

His team brings together data science, computation, synthesis, and characterization to study ion transport in electrolytes and control the interfacial reactions that determine efficiency and longevity in energy storage systems. Amanchukwu Lab leverages artificial intelligence  and machine learning to accelerate materials discovery. In a paper published in Nature Communications, his team developed a model that started with just 58 data points to explore a virtual search space of one million potential battery electrolytes, ultimately identifying four new candidates that rival current state-of-the-art solvents.

Electrochemistry has also led Amanchukwu’s lab into more unexpected territory via the fight against “forever chemicals.” Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (or PFAS) are a class of thousands of compounds used in everything from firefighting foams to non-stick cookware, whose resistance to breakdown has made them a threat to drinking water worldwide. After repeatedly fielding questions at conferences about whether his lab’s fluorinated battery electrolytes contributed to the problem, Amanchukwu’s team took a different approach: rather than dismiss the concern, they asked what could be learned from the way PFAS compounds already degrade inside batteries.

Amanchukwu, who also holds a joint appointment at Argonne National Laboratory, received his PhD in chemical engineering from MIT and completed postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford University and the University of Cambridge. He was named one of MIT Technology Review’s “Innovators Under 35” in 2024 and one of Chemical & Engineering News’ “Talented 12,” and has received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Program award, an Army Research Office Early Career Award, and a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award.

Learn more about his work at http.//amanchukwu.uchicago.edu/.