Chemistry Graduate Student Wins Inflection Award for Developing Scalable, Sustainable Battery Technology

Eshaan Patheria, a Caltech graduate student in chemistry, is one of 30 young scientists from around the world to receive the inaugural Inflection Award, an honor celebrating early-career scientists working on solutions to address climate change. Patheria was recognized for his work in the lab of professor of chemistry Kimberly See, where he strives to improve the performance of cathodes in lithium-ion batteries, making them more sustainable by using elements that are abundant and widely available.

Organized by Marble, a European climate-tech venture studio, with support from Breakthrough Energy Fellows and the Quadrature Climate Foundation, the Inflection Awards are "dedicated to finding the top young scientists of tomorrow and connecting them with the highest impact opportunities to make their mark on climate change," according to the award website.

Patheria and the other honorees received their awards in Paris, France, during a two-day event on March 10 and 11 where they attended intensive sessions with influential figures in climate science, investment, and policy.

"Receiving this award is a huge honor," Patheria says. "My dream is for the technology we're developing to accelerate the global shift to renewables and vastly expand energy access, especially in underserved communities globally."

Patheria, who received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 2018, is interested in improving the design and scalability of batteries. He opted to defer his admission to Caltech for a year in order to lead an effort that would ultimately establish the first solar microgrid in India to use lithium-ion technology for storage.

That year-long project, a collaboration between an NGO called Gram Vikas and the state government of Odisha, India, proved successful. Patheria returns yearly to check on the microgrid and to reconnect with the people of Maligaon, a community in northeast India where the work took place. "It's a place that is very close to my heart," Patheria says. A local farmer in Maligaon has started using the first electric pump in the area, growing crops on previously unused land. Another family has opened a shop with the first refrigerator in the village. Yet another has started manufacturing slippers with motorized equipment.

"The project marked a strong personal inflection point, giving me a first-hand understanding into what a lack of access to energy really looks like, and how gaining access enables new opportunities over time," says Patheria, who will be defending his dissertation next month.

Patheria spent most of his childhood in Mumbai, India. As a teenager, he worked as a volunteer in a teaching program at a government-run high school, helping other students in a literacy program. He grew close enough to those students to be invited to their homes and into their lives. There, he says, he saw that even in a major city like Mumbai, there are people living without access to sufficient energy to power basic household appliances.

One of the biggest bottlenecks to scaling lithium-ion batteries for global energy infrastructure is their reliance on expensive, supply-limited cathode materials like cobalt and nickel. At Caltech, Patheria has spent the last six years developing cathodes made from aluminum, iron, and sulfur—the only elements produced at over 10 million tons annually, globally, at low cost, and at extremely high battery-grade purity.

He and his colleagues have developed a family of LixAlyFezS2 cathodes that out-perform best-in-class materials in terms of energy density—that is, the amount of energy stored per kilogram of cathode material. His research has focused on understanding the fundamental mechanisms that enable such high levels of energy storage. At the same time, the team has applied for a patent, and Patheria is working to scale the technology, which he will pursue full-time after he defends.

For Patheria, receiving the Inflection Award has served as a reminder of how privileged he has been to work on developing this technology. "In some ways, it feels too early for this kind of recognition. Our technology hasn't had a societal impact yet," Patheria says. "I'm deeply grateful to the Inflection team for this platform, and to my PhD advisor, Kim, for her unwavering support and years of dedicated mentorship. My commitment to them is to pay it forward—to use this award to its fullest potential in tackling the difficult problems that I, and the other awardees, are working to address in sustainability and decarbonization."

Patheria enjoyed meeting the other Inflection Award honorees and participating in the intensive sessions in Paris. There he learned about the business side of climate solutions, such as what it takes to scale up and deploy technologies from fundamental discoveries, and how to think like a climate technology venture capitalist. "Just as new scientific discoveries need lots of further development to benefit society, so do scientists like me who aim to translate that opportunity into real-world impact," Patheria says. "I'm so grateful for how much I learned in Paris, from experts who've done it before, and from peers who share my mission to tackle climate change."