Ilias Belharouak

Bio

Dr. Ilias Belharouak is a Corporate Fellow and the Head of the Electrification Section at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee. He is also a Professor at the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education of the University of Tennessee Knoxville. He holds an honorary position as an Adjunct Full Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Illinois, USA, advising the Battery Ph.D. program. At ORNL, Dr. Belharouak leads multidisciplinary R&D programs that are sponsored by multiple government agencies and industries focusing on battery energy storage and advanced manufacturing. He is also an advisory board member for several US universities and government agencies. 

Dr. Belharouak is a seasoned researcher with extensive experience collaborating with government agencies and various industries on battery technology projects. He is well-versed in different fields, including medical, electric vehicles, and renewable energy storage applications. His primary research interests revolve around high-power and high-energy lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries, beyond lithium-ion battery technology, battery materials and molecular discovery, electrolytes and additives, engineering, and scale-up of battery components and cells, multi-scale range characterization of battery components and interfaces, diagnostics, postmortem, and probing of the aging phenomena in batteries.

Dr. Belharouak has been recognized with several awards, including seven R&D 100 awards and four U.S. Federal Laboratory Consortium Awards. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers, 50 U.S. patents and patent applications, and 5 books. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Power Sources, holds an h-index of 78, and has been invited to speak more than 70 times around the world.

Professional Experience

Before joining ORNL in 2017, Dr. Belharouak held two key positions in Qatar. He served as the Research Director and Founding Chief Scientist of the Electrochemical Energy Storage Center  Qatar Foundation and as a Professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) for two years. In these roles, he was responsible for managing an annual budget of $15M to advance the State of Qatar's progress in the field of energy storage and environment.

Before joining Qatar Foundation in 2013, he worked as a Material Scientist at  Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in Illinois from 2001-2013. During his time at Argonne, he served as the principal investigator for several battery material-related technologies, including those for high-energy density and high-power density Li-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries, solid-state batteries, and lithium-sulfur batteries.

Awards

• 2024: R&D 100 Awards

• 2022: R&D 100 Awards

• 2022: Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award

• 2021: Excellence in Technology Transfer Award

• 2020: R&D 100 Awards

• 2012: R&D 100 Awards

• 2009: R&D 100 Awards

• 2009: Excellence in Technology Transfer Award

• 2009: U.S. Government Recognition Letters

• 2008: R&D 100 Awards

• 2008: Excellence in Technology Transfer Award

• 2007: Pacesetter Award

• 2007: Director Award

• 2005: R&D 100 Awards

Education

• 1999: Ph.D. of Materials Science, Bordeaux 1 University, Bordeaux, France

  • Institute of Condensed Matter Chemistry of Bordeaux (ICMCB)

  • National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)

• 1996: Masters of Materials Science, Bordeaux 1 University, Bordeaux, France

  • Institute of Condensed Matter Chemistry of Bordeaux (ICMCB)

  • National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)

• 1995: Bachelor of Inorganic Chemistry, Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakech, Morocco

  • Faculty of Sciences Semlalia, Marrakech                                

Professional Affiliations

• Member of the Electrochemical Society
• Member of the American Ceramic Society
• Member of the Material Research Society

Publications

Other Publications