Meet Donald Sadoway, PhD

Donald Sadoway has been changing the world through science for over 40 years. He is a one-man disruptor dedicated to developing solutions to the world's most pressing problems.

Sadoway’s ideas have attracted industrial attention because they are conceived from the outset with scale, manufacturability, resource availability, and cost in mind. His work reflects a distinctive scientific style: start with the periodic table, respect thermodynamics, select materials that can scale, and design chemistry in service of society.

Taking a radical approach to extreme electrochemistry

Donald Sadoway has been called an international thought leader, a visionary, and a leading developer of battery technology. Taking the approach of extreme electrochemistry, he has moved forward new battery chemistries but also innovation in metals extraction with molten oxide electrolysis, a new way to produce steel without CO₂ emissions. Mitigating climate change requires radical, rapid solutions that transform our relationship with energy. Donald Sadoway is leading a wave of innovation with extreme electrochemistry and building the technology to get to carbon zero.

The Sadoway research

Donald Sadoway's research seeks to establish the scientific underpinnings of technologies that make efficient use of energy and natural resources in an environmentally sound manner.
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The overarching theme of his work is electrochemistry in nonaqueous media focused on these technological challenges: environmentally sound electrochemical extraction of metals, liquid metal batteries for stationary storage applications, and solid-polymer-electrolyte batteries for portable power applications.

Professor Emeritus
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. His GroupSadoway lab at MIT is behind the invention of the Liquid Metal Battery, Molten Oxide Electrolysis, and the aluminum sufure battery. He is the inventor on 43 US patents, and author of 178 published scientific papers.

Donald Sadoway's impact on
engineering education has
extended well beyond the
lecture hall

Online videos of his lectures in general chemistry hosted by MIT OpenCourseWare, have been viewed thousands of times from around the globe. Bill Gates has been quoted "Don Sadoway, MIT--best chemistry lectures everywhere. Unbelievable."

TED Talk on the Liquid Metal Battery

Donald Sadoway's TED talk, now viewed over 2.5 million times, is as much about inventing inventors as it is about inventing the Liquid Metal Battery.

Watch the Sadoway TED talk

One of the 100 Most Influential People in the World

The professor holds his own on the Colbert Report

He joined Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report for a hilarious discussion about the Liquid Metal Battery in October 2012.

European Inventor of the Year Award

Donald Sadoway was named winner of the European Inventor Award 2022 in the Non-EPO countries category for the Liquid Metal Battery.

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Chemistry lectures
on OpenCourseWare

Introduction to Solid State Chemistry is a first-year single-semester college course on the principles of chemistry. This unique and popular course satisfies MIT’s general chemistry degree requirement, with an emphasis on solid-state materials and their application to engineering systems.

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