Re-shoring of critical minerals extraction, refining, and recycling is an urgent priority for securing supply chains for domestic manufacturing, ensuring affodability, and reaching our goals in electrification. We focus on designing, understanding, and implementing chelators, sorbents, and membranes that enable selective ion separations from diverse resources.

Selected publications:
Baird, M. A.; Kingsbury, R. S.; Wang, Y.; Zhu, C.; Chen, G.; Klivansky, L.; Whittaker, M. L.; Helms, B. A. "Electrochemical Li⁺ Enrichment of Mixed-Cation Brines with Antiselective Polymer Membranes" ACS Energy Lett. 2025, 10, 3500–3507 [pdf]

Baird, M. A.; Kingsbury, R. S.; Wang, Y.; Gang, A.; Zhu, C.; Whittaker, M. L.; Helms, B. A. "Microporous Polymer Sorbents for Direct Lithium Extraction" ACS Energy Lett. 2024, 9, 4361–4368 [pdf]

Kingsbury, R. S.; Baird, M. A.; Zhang, J.; Patel, H. D.; Baran, M. J.; Helms, B. A.; Hoek, E. M. V. "Kinetic barrier networks reveal rate limitations in ion-selective membranes" Matter 2024, 7, 2161-2183 [pdf]