Why in news?
- John B Goodenough, whose contribution to lithium-ion battery technology in 1980 helped him win the 2019 Nobel Prize in chemistry, died on June 25 at the age of 100.
- He became the oldest person to receive the Nobel Prize.
- He had shared his Nobel with two other researchers:
- Michael Stanley Whittingham, a British-American chemist, and
- Akira Yoshino, a Japanese chemist – Yoshino invented the first commercially viable lithium-ion battery, which began to be sold in 1991.
- His work transformed the tech world, sparking the wireless revolution that made portable electronics ubiquitous.
About to lithium-ion battery
- Goodenough’s breakthroughs, along with those of M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino formed the foundation for the commercialisation of rechargeable batteries.
- Whittingham’s work in the 1970s led to the creation of a battery capable of generating over two volts, while Goodenough’s advancements in the 1980s doubled the battery’s capacity using cobalt oxide.
- Yoshino’s innovations replaced volatile pure lithium with safer lithium ions, leading to the introduction of lightweight, durable, and rechargeable batteries in 1991.
Functioning
- During a discharge cycle, lithium atoms in the anode are ionized and separated from their electrons.
- The lithium ions move from the anode and pass through the electrolyte until they reach the cathode. Where they recombine with their electrons and electrically neutralize.
- The lithium ions are small enough to be able to move through a micro-permeable separator between the anode and cathode.
- Because of lithium’s small size (third only to hydrogen and helium). Li-ion batteries are capable of having a very high voltage and charge storage per unit mass and unit volume.
Distinctions
In 1976, the National Academy of Engineering elected Professor Goodenough as a member for his work in designing materials for electronic components and for clarifying the relationships between the properties, structures, and chemistry of substances. He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, French Academy of Sciences, the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences, India. He authored more than 550 articles, 85 book chapters and reviews, and five books, including two seminal works, Magnetism and the Chemical Bond (1963) and Les oxydes des metaux de transition (1973). Goodenough was a co-recipient of the 2009 Enrico Fermi Award for his work in lithium-ion batteries, alongside Siegfried S. Hecker of Stanford University who received the award for his work in plutonium metallurgy.
In 2010, the Royal Society elected Professor Goodenough as a Foreign Member. On February 1, 2013, President Barack Obama of the United States presented Goodenough with the National Medal of Science. He was awarded the Draper Prize in engineering. In 2015, Thomson Reuters listed Professor Goodenough and M. Stanley Whittingham for their pioneering research leading to the development of the lithium-ion battery on the list of Clarivate Citation Laureates for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Professor Goodenough received the Welch Award in Chemistry in 2017, and the Royal Society awarded him the Copley Medal in 2019.
Read also:-
