Linda Gaines is the Chief Scientist of the new ReCell Center for Advanced Battery Recycling and a Systems Analyst in the Energy Systems Division at Argonne National Laboratory. She holds a BA in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia.
Her primary interest is problem solving, applied to efficient use of resources. She began her career at Argonne by writing a series of handbooks of energy and material flows in petroleum refining, organic chemicals, and copper industries that provided background for studies of technical and institutional issues involved in recycling discarded tires, packaging, and other energy-intensive materials.
Dr. Gaines has examined the costs and impacts on energy use and the environment of production and recycling of advanced-design automobiles, trucks, and trains, and batteries. She has also examined the potential growth of electricity demand by industry and performed technical and economic analysis of alternative fuels, including hydrogen and biofuels. Her most recent work has involved studying ways to reduce impacts from transport by recycling of batteries. She is an editor of the journal Sustainable Materials and Technologies.