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Chemistry Nobel Prize Goes to Lithium-Ion Battery Developers
New York Ag Connection - 10/10/2019

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 to:

- John B. Goodenough, The University of Texas at Austin, USA

- M. Stanley Whittingham, Binghamton University, State University of New York, USA

- Akira Yoshino, Asahi Kasei Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, Meijo University, Nagoya, Japan

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 rewards the development of the lithium-ion battery. This lightweight, rechargeable and powerful battery is now used in everything from mobile phones to laptops and electric vehicles. It can also store significant amounts of energy from solar and wind power, making possible a fossil fuel-free society.

Lithium-ion batteries are used globally to power the portable electronics that we use to communicate, work, study, listen to music and search for knowledge. Lithiumion batteries have also enabled the development of long-range electric cars and the storage of energy from renewable sources, such as solar and wind power.

The foundation of the lithium-ion battery was laid during the oil crisis in the 1970s. Stanley Whittingham worked on developing methods that could lead to fossil fuel-free energy technologies. He started to research superconductors and discovered an extremely energy-rich material, which he used to create an innovative cathode in a lithium battery. This was made from titanium disulphide which, at a molecular level, has spaces that can house -- intercalate -- lithium ions.

The battery's anode was partially made from metallic lithium, which has a strong drive to release electrons. This resulted in a battery that literally had great potential, just over two volts. However, metallic lithium is reactive and the battery was too explosive to be viable.

John Goodenough predicted that the cathode would have even greater potential if it was made using a metal oxide instead of a metal sulphide. After a systematic search, in 1980 he demonstrated that cobalt oxide with intercalated lithium ions can produce as much as four volts. This was an important breakthrough and would lead to much more powerful batteries.

With Goodenough's cathode as a basis, Akira Yoshino created the first commercially viable lithium-ion battery in 1985. Rather than using reactive lithium in the anode, he used petroleum coke, a carbon material that, like the cathode's cobalt oxide, can intercalate lithium ions.

The result was a lightweight, hardwearing battery that could be charged hundreds of times before its performance deteriorated. The advantage of lithium-ion batteries is that they are not based upon chemical reactions that break down the electrodes, but upon lithium ions flowing back and forth between the anode and cathode.

Lithium-ion batteries have revolutionised our lives since they first entered the market in 1991. They have laid the foundation of a wireless, fossil fuel-free society, and are of the greatest benefit to humankind.

On behalf of the American Chemical Society (ACS), President Bonnie Charpentier, Ph.D., congratulated Wednesday's winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

"In this, the International Year of the Periodic Table, I am so thrilled that three of our members, with over a century of combined ACS membership, have been honored with the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their invention and development of the lithium-ion battery," says Charpentier. "In the face of increasing threats from extreme climate change, today's announcement shines a welcome bright light on the portability of energy that has enabled unprecedented advances in communication, transportation and other tools to support critical aspects of life around the world."

Goodenough has been a member of ACS for 44 years. Whittingham has been a member of ACS for 46 years, and in the past has served as chair of the Binghamton Local Section and on the Member Committee on the Petroleum Research Fund. Yoshino has been a member of ACS for eight years.

Both Goodenough and Whittingham have published articles in some of ACS' 60 peer-reviewed journals. In addition, news articles on the work have appeared in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine. Goodenough was recently featured in a C&EN podcast: At 97, lithium-ion battery pioneer John Goodenough says his work is not done. Articles are available from the contacts below.

The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. ACS does not conduct research, but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.


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