Texas A&M team awarded $5 million Welch Catalyst for Discovery grant
An interdisciplinary project will develop new battery materials aimed at advancing safer, more sustainable energy storage.
A team of Texas A&M University researchers has been awarded a $5 million Catalyst for Discovery Program Grant to support an ambitious effort to explore a new generation of battery materials designed to address some of the biggest challenges facing today’s energy storage technologies.
The award comes from the Robert A. Welch Foundation, one of the nation’s largest private funders of fundamental chemical research at Texas colleges and universities. Through its Catalyst for Discovery Program, the foundation supports collaborative research teams pursuing significant problems at the leading edge of chemistry. The Texas A&M team brings together the expertise of Dr. Jodie Lutkenhaus, professor of chemical engineering; Dr. Karen Wooley, distinguished professor of chemistry and member of both the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering; Dr. Daniel Tabor, assistant professor of chemistry; Dr. Alison Fout, professor of chemistry; and Dr. Emily Pentzer, professor of chemistry.
The global push toward electrification is currently limited by the shortcomings of conventional lithium-ion batteries, which face supply chain risks, safety concerns — including the potential for fires and explosions — and poor performance in extreme cold. The Texas A&M team will investigate metal-containing redox-active polymers and oligomers as a promising new class of sustainable battery materials.
The project seeks to answer fundamental questions about how these materials behave and how their chemical structure influences their performance. Improving scientists’ understanding of these materials will provide a foundation for designing more sustainable battery technologies.
“This award reflects the research enterprise at Texas A&M — one where exceptional scientists come together across disciplines to tackle ambitious challenges that no single laboratory could solve alone,” said Dr. Angela K. Wilson, vice president for research and a professor of chemistry. “The Welch Foundation is one of the most influential private supporters of chemical research in the United States, and its investment in this team via the prestigious Catalyst for Discovery Program recognizes both the strength of their science and the potential for fundamental discoveries that could shape the future of energy storage.”
The grant builds on a series of advances by members of the research team aimed at reimagining how batteries are designed.
“The Pentzer group brings expertise in polymer synthesis and processing into composite structures, such as those needed for battery electrodes,” Pentzer said. “By integrating expertise from our group with the expertise that Wooley brings in naturally derived materials, Lutkenhaus brings in electrochemistry and batteries, Tabor brings in computation and property prediction, and Fout brings in metal-ligand interactions, we will be able to make rapid and impactful understandings across this class of materials.”
The project will also leverage Texas A&M’s VISION SuperPOD, recently named the nation’s most powerful university supercomputer. Researchers included the system as part of their proposal to the Welch Foundation to support the project’s transformational science.
Earlier this year, the Welch Foundation highlighted Lutkenhaus’ research in its 2025 Annual Report, recognizing her work on polymer-based batteries and sensors. That research has also led to recent advances, including a polymer-based battery capable of operating in temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius, demonstrating how alternative battery materials could overcome one of the longstanding limitations of conventional lithium-ion technology.
The project also expands on collaborative work by Lutkenhaus and Wooley to develop battery materials from renewable, naturally derived polymers. In that research, which was also supported by the foundation, the team created a biodegradable battery material using compounds found in vitamin B2 and amino acids, showing that more sustainable materials could achieve electrochemical performance comparable to conventional synthetic alternatives while also breaking down safely at the end of their life cycle.
