Christopher Arges

Principal Chemical Engineer

Biography

Chris Arges is a Principal Chemical Engineer in the Applied Materials Division at Argonne National Laboratory. His research interests are at the intersection of electrochemical engineering and polymer science with the broad goals of advancing energy and manufacturing technologies. Prior to joining Argonne, Chris was an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Penn State and an Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering at Louisiana State University. He earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a PhD in Chemical Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Chris was a postdoctoral scholar in Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago and the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. Chris is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, the Electrochemical Society-Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship, the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, and the Emerging Young Investigator Award by the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

Selected publications:

1. M. Kim, G. Sun, Z. Yi, M. Mandal, R. Dong, K. Wang, P. Kohl, Z. Wang, C.G. Arges. S. Patel, J.J. de Pablo, P.F. Nealey, Origins of Enhanced Ion Transport in Nanostructured Anion Conducting Polyelectrolytes, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2026, https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.6c05179

2. M. Goldman, M. Marufu, E. Krall, L. Thigpen, T. Gao, S. Li, D. Ross, A. Prajapati, N. Hwee, J. Mora, M. L. Jue, K. Li, M. A. T. Marple, J. R. Torres, Y. Zhang, R. Hobbs, P.-Y. A. Chuang, C. Hahn, S. Jaffer, H. Gross, J. Raisin, M. Fleischer, E. Simon, R. Assary, C.G. Arges, S.E. Baker, A.Wong, Identifying electrolyzer failure modes for long-term operation of CO₂ electrolyzers for C₂₊ products, Chem Catalysis, 2026, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.checat.2026.101759

3. M. Hasan, M. Labella, C.B. Walters, C.G. Arges, E.D. Gomez, C.A. Gorski, Dilute Regeneration-Driven Membrane Capacitive Deionization of Synthetic Seawater Using Nanopatterned Membranes and Prussian Blue Analog Electrodes, Small, 2026, 22, e10773, https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202510773

4. S. Li, T. Gao, Y.J. Lin, C.G. Arges, R.S. Assary, Molecular Insights into CO₂-to-Bicarbonate Transformation in Functionalized Anion Exchange Ionomers for Electrochemical Separations, Materials Horizons, 2026, 13, 430-442,https://doi.org/10.1039/D5MH01229E

5. C.G. Arges, M.Z. Bazant, R.D. Cusick, T.A. Hatton, S.A. Hawks, C.-H. Hou, J. Kamcev, D. Kwabi, J. Landon, S. Lin, Y.J. Lin, C. Liu, X. Su, W. Tarpeh, L. Valentino, D. Waite, H. Wang, Current developments in electrochemical separations, Nature Chemical Engineering, 2025,2, 524-528, https://doi.org/10.1038/s44286-025-00281-z

6. G. Zaldivar, R. Dong, J. Montes De Oca, G. Sun, R. Alessandri, C.G. Arges, S. Patel, P.F. Nealey, J.J de Pablo, The Role of Water Volume Fraction on Water Adsorption in Anion Exchange Membranes, Macromolecules,2025, 58, 9972-9982, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.5c01256

7. C. Ba, S. Xu, C.G. Arges, J.H. Park, J. Park, M. Urgun-Demirtas, Design of non-fluorinated proton exchange membranes from poly(terphenyl fluorenyl isatin) with fluorene-linked sulfonate groups and microblock structures, Journal of Membrane Science, 2025, 123551, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.memsci.2024.123551

8. Arges, C.G. Reinventing the electrochemical desalination platform. Nature Water, 2024, 2, 923, https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00321-7

9. T. Kulkarni, X. Zhang, A.M. Al Dhamen, Chan-Wen Chiu, H. Zhang, F. Chi, R. Kumar, C.G. Arges, Bipolar membrane capacitive deionization for the selective capture of lithium ions from brines and conversion to lithium hydroxide, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 2024, 171, 103502, https://doi.org/10.1149/1945-7111/ad7a25

10. B. Yang, X. Zhang, B. Shrimant, T. Kulkarni, R. Kumar, C.G. Arges, Selective phosphate removal with manganese oxide composite anion exchange membranes in membrane capacitive deionization, Chemical Engineering Journal, 2024, 153468, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2024.153468

11. K. Arunagiri, J. Turssline, C.G. Arges, Purifying hydrogen from dilute hydrogen-natural gas mixtures using HT-PEM electrochemical hydrogen pumps, ACS Energy Letters, 2024, 9, 2912, https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.4c00746

12. T. Hudak, C.A. Gorski, C.G. Arges, A redox-electrodialysis model with zero fitting parameters: insights into process limitations, design, and material interventions, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 2024, 171, 053502, https://doi.org/10.1149/1945-7111/ad3d0e

13. T. Kulkarni, B. Yang, X. Zhang, R. Kumar, C.G. Arges, ACS Spotlight: Bipolar membranes for electrochemical energy conversion, chemical manufacturing, and separations, ACS Applied Energy Materials, 2024, 7, 11361, Invited for the Early Career Forum issue, https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.3c03260

14. D. Bhattacharya, K. Wang, G. Wu, and C.G. Arges, Extended-surface thin film platinum electrocatalysts with different mesoscale morphologies, JACS Au, 2023,3, 2269, https://doi.org/10.1021/jacsau.3c00277

15. K. Arunagiri, A. Wong, L.A. Briceno-Mena, J.A. Romagnoli, M.J. Janik, C.G. Arges, Deconvoluting charge-transfer, mass transfer, and ohmic resistances in phosphonic acid-sulfonic acid ionomer binders used in electrochemical hydrogen pumps, Energy & Environmental Science, 2023, 16, 5916, https://doi.org/10.1039/D3EE01776A

16. L. Briceno-Mena, C.G. Arges, and J.A. Romagnoli, Machine Learning-Based Surrogate Models and Transfer Learning for Derivative Free Optimization of HT-PEM Fuel Cells, Computers and Chemical Engineering, 2023, 51, 1537, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-95879-0.50257-5