Fikile Brushett

Short CV

Fikile Brushett is a tenured professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he currently holds the Chevron chair. He received his B.S.E. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006 and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2009 and 2010, respectively. From 2010 – 2012, he was a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the electrochemical energy storage group at Argonne National Laboratory. 
Brushett joined MIT in 2012 as an assistant professor and received promotions to associate professor without tenure in 2018, associate professor with tenure in 2020, and full professor in 2024. He leads a research group focused on advancing the science and engineering of electrochemical technologies towards a sustainable global economy. 
Brushett has authored or coauthored more than 130 peer-reviewed publications and delivered over 130 invited national and international lectures. He has also served in multiple leadership roles within the Joint Center for Energy Storage (2013-2023), an energy innovation hub funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Selected Awards

• 2024, Young Alumni Achievement Award, Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Univ. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• 2022, Allan P. Colburn Award for Excellence in Publications by a Young Member of the Institute, American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)
• 2022, Charles W. Tobias Young Investigator Award, The Electrochemical Society (ECS)
• 2021, Henry A. Hill Lecture, National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) and Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS)
• 2020, Lloyd N. Ferguson Young Investigator Award for Excellence in Research, NOBCChE
• 2018, Energy Technology Division Supramaniam Srinivasan Young Investigator Award, ECS
• 2018, U.S. Department of Energy, Secretary of Energy Achievement Award, Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) Operations Team
• 2017, Chemical and Engineering News Talented 12 Chemist
• 2014, 2017, C. Michael Mohr Outstanding Faculty Award, MIT

Research Interests

Brushett seeks to understand and control the fundamental processes that govern the performance, cost, and lifetime of present day and next-generation electrochemical systems for energy storage and conversion. His research approach combines synthesis and characterization of redox-active materials, design and engineering of electrochemical reactors, and techno-economic modeling of electrochemical systems. He places a strong emphasis on connecting system-level performance and cost goals to materials-level property requirements and on leveraging this knowledge to guide exploration of new chemistries and reactor designs. Ultimately, he aims to develop robust and portable guiding principles for the design of materials, processes, and devices that harness electrochemical phenomena. He is particularly interested in topics related to sustainable power delivery, environmental stewardship, and process intensification.

Selected publications

• A.H. Quinn, K.M. Ripley, N.J. Matteucci, B.J. Neyhouse, C.A.O. Brown, W.P. Woltmann, and F.R. Brushett, “Elucidating the effects of temperature on nonaqueous redox flow cell cycling performance,” Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2023, 170, 12, 0520.
• B.J. Neyhouse, R.M. Darling, J.D. Saraidaridis, and F.R. Brushett, “A method for quantifying crossover in redox flow cells through compositionally unbalanced symmetric cell cycling,” Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2023, 170, 8, 0514.
• C.T. Wan, R.R. Jacquemond, Y.-M. Chiang, A. Forner-Cuenca, and F.R. Brushett, “Engineering Redox Flow Battery Electrodes with Spatially Varying Porosity using Non-Solvent Induced Phase Separation,” Energy Technology, 2023, 11, 8, 2300137.
• M.V. Majji, B.J. Neyhouse, N.J. Matteucci, K.R. Lennon, C.T. Mallia, A.M. Fenton Jr., J.W. Swan, and F.R. Brushett, “Modeling electrochemical and rheological characteristics of suspension-based electrodes for redox flow cells,” Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2023, 170, 5, 0532.
• K.E. Rodby, R.L. Jaffe, E.A. Olivetti, and F.R. Brushett, “Materials availability and supply chain considerations for vanadium in grid-scale redox flow batteries,” Journal of Power Sources, 2023, 560, 232605.
• L.E. Clarke, M.E. Leonard, T.A. Hatton, and F.R. Brushett, “Thermodynamic modeling of CO₂ separation systems with soluble, redox-active capture species,” ACS Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 2022, 61 (29), 10531.
• B.J. Neyhouse, K.M. Tenny, Y.-M. Chiang, and F.R. Brushett, “Microelectrode-based sensor for measuring operando active species concentrations in redox flow cells,” ACS Applied Energy Materials, 2021, 4, 12, 13830-13840.
• W. Gao, M.J. Orella, T.J. Carney, Y. Román-Leshkov, J. Drake, and F.R. Brushett, “Understanding the Impact of Convective Transport on Intercalation Batteries Through Dimensional Analysis,” Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2020, 167, 14, 0551.
• K.E. Rodby, T.J. Carney, Y. Ashraf Gandomi, J.L. Barton, R.M. Darling, and F.R. Brushett, “Assessing the levelized cost of vanadium redox flow batteries with capacity fade and rebalancing,” Journal of Power Sources, 2020, 460, 227958.
• M.E. Leonard, L.E. Clarke, A. Forner-Cuenca, S.M. Brown, and F.R. Brushett, “Investigating Electrode Flooding in a Flowing Electrolyte, Gas-Fed Carbon Dioxide Electrolyzer,” ChemSusChem, 2019, 13, 2, 400-411.