Michael Makepeace Thackeray (born in 1949) is a South African chemist and battery materials researcher. He is mainly known for his work on electrochemically active cathode materials. In the mid-1980s he co-discovered the

manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...

oxide spinel family of cathodes for

lithium ion batteries A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery which uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy. It is the predominant battery type used in portable consumer electronics and electric vehicles. It also see ...

while working in the lab of

John Goodenough John Bannister Goodenough ( ; born July 25, 1922) is an American materials scientist, a solid-state physicist, and a Nobel laureate in chemistry. He is a professor of Mechanical, Materials Science, and Electrical Engineering at the University ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. In 1998, while at Argonne National Laboratory, he led a team that first reported the NMC cathode technology. Patent protection around the concept and materials were first issued in 2005 to Argonne National Laboratory to a team with Thackeray, Khalil Amine, Jaekook Kim, and Christopher Johnson. The reported invention is now widely used in consumer electronics and electric vehicles.

Career

Thackeray obtained his M.Sc and Ph.D. in Chemistry at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. After University, he worked for the CSIR of South Africa from 1973 to 1977 as a researcher in the National Physical Research Laboratory in

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foot ...

. From 1981-82, as well as in 1985, he worked with

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. In 1983 Thackeray returned to CSIR as Group Leader of the Ceramics Division and in 1988 was named a Research Manager in the Battery Technology Unit. In 1994, Thackeray moved to the Chemical Technology Division at Argonne National Laboratory in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, where he was named Group Leader of the Battery Materials Group within the Electrochemical Energy Storage Department. He was the founding director of the Center for Electrochemical Energy Science (CEES), a

Department of Energy A Ministry of Energy or Department of Energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-re ...

Energy Frontier Research Center, where he oversaw research to understand lithium-air storage chemistry, polymerized cathode coatings, and cathode surface stability. He retired in 2019. Thackeray has co-authored more than 200 publications, and he holds more than 60 patents. He was elected Fellow of

The Electrochemical Society The Electrochemical Society is a learned society (professional association) based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of electrochemistry and solid-state science and related technology. The Society membership compri ...

in 2014 and

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

in 2022. He received the Electrochemical Society Battery Division Research Award in 2005, the Yeager Award of International Battery Association in 2011 and the International Battery Association Medal of Excellence in 2019.

References

External links

Michael Thackeray, Argonne experts page, Retrieved am 17.05.2012

Announcement of Hydro-Québec and Technifin, Retrieved 17.05.2012
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thackeray, Michael M. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Fellows of the Royal Society Academics of the University of Oxford South African chemists Argonne National Laboratory people University of Cape Town alumni