Battery industry players paid tribute to John Goodenough, the world’s oldest Nobel Prize winner, who died on Sunday aged 100. The University of Texas at Austin (UT), where he worked as an engineering professor into his 90s, said his legacy as a brilliant scientist was immeasurable.
Goodenough shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his battery work. UT said Goodenough identified and developed the critical cathode materials that provided the high-energy density needed to power electronics such as mobile phones, laptops and tablets, as well as electric and hybrid vehicles.
The Nobel prize was shared with Stanley Whittingham of the State University of New York at Binghamton and Akira Yoshino of Meijo University.
In 1979, Goodenough and his research team found that by using lithium cobalt oxide as the cathode of a lithium-ion rechargeable battery, it would be possible to achieve a high density of stored energy with an anode other than metallic lithium. This discovery led to the development of carbon-based materials that allow for the use of stable and manageable negative electrodes in lithium-ion batteries.
Goodenough began his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory in 1952. He worked there for 24 years and laid the groundwork for the development of random-access memory (RAM) for the digital computer. He emerged as a pioneer of orbital physics and one of the founders of the modern theory of magnetism.
After MIT, Goodenough became a professor and head of the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory at the University of Oxford. During this time, he made the lithium-ion discovery.
The Faraday Institution said battery science had “lost a giant”. Simon Moores, CEO of Benchmark Minerals, said: “All of us in the lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle industry have stood on the shoulders of giants…The passing of John Goodenough marks a moment in time for our industry to be thankful. Thankful for this genuine pioneer who led the discovery of probably the most powerful technology to change our world and shift us away from fossil fuel dominance.”
Photo: courtesy, University of Texas at Austin
