Viswanathan, 35, studied mechanical engineering in Chennai at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras before turning to fluid dynamics and batteries at Stanford. Now he leads a group at Carnegie Mellon focused on improvements that could help power passenger aircraft with a technology that, 30 years ago, was only for camcorders.
To build batteries that could enable electric long-haul trucks and aircraft would require changes to the four main components: two electrodes—cathode and anode—between which trillions of charged lithium atoms travel; an electrolyte that enables the movement of those ions; and the separator that prevents electrodes from coming into contact and causing fires.
Viswanathan also has insights into looming advances as an adviser to QuantumScape Corp., the developer in San Jose that raced to a $20 billion valuation with a promise to increase the range of battery-powered electric cars by 50%, and as chief scientist for Aionics Inc., which is using artificial intelligence to speed up battery development.
He spoke with Bloomberg Markets in June about what he sees coming next. The comments have been edited for length and clarity.
What drew you to the world of batteries?
Probably the most influential thing happened accidentally. I interned at Bosch [Robert Bosch GmbH] in Palo Alto in 2010, and the problem they defined for me was to work on lithium-air batteries. I had never done any work on batteries. When I went back to Stanford, lithium-air became my main thesis topic. It was the hardest thing to work on at that point.
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