![]() Wind and solar power need to smooth out their fluctuations, and to store electricity for night, calm conditions and surges in demand. In the third revolution, that of renewable energy, Li-ion plays more of a supporting role, but various types of batteries will become increasingly important. ![]() Now, the falling cost and rising capacity of his Li-ion innovation makes possible, for the first time in a century, a ground transport system that does not rely mostly on petroleum. A modern Tesla car with 100 kilowatt hours of storage would have cost $800,000 in 1991 for the battery alone. Goodenough entered battery research in 1973 precisely because he wanted to solve the US's over-reliance on imported oil. The second revolution is picking up speed: motoring. While the basic configuration of most lithium-ion batteries remains the same today, it has enabled three revolutions. The technology has improved but, mostly, manufacturing has been transformed in scale and sophistication.Ī photo shows lithium batteries for aeronautics manufactured by the company Limatech, in Voreppe near Grenoble. Now, that is down to $151 per kilowatt-hour. Introduced by Sony in 1991, the Li-ion battery cost nearly $8,000 per kilowatt-hour (a typical smartphone today contains about 12 to 16 watt-hours). Unlike their competitors that powered popular gadgets such as the 1979 Sony Walkman or the early brick-sized mobile phones of the 1980s, Li-ion batteries do not contain toxic mercury and were not harmful to children when swallowed. It was also lighter, due to lithium being the lightest metal. The result had a higher voltage than traditional batteries, twice the storage capacity, and could be recharged hundreds of times. Finally, Japanese researcher Akira Yoshino introduced graphite for the anode, the positive electrode.Ĭhemistry laureates Akira Yoshino, John B Goodenough and M Stanley Whittingham pose after their Nobel Lectures at Stockholm University in Stockholm, Sweden. Then, as recounted in Bottled Lightning, Seth Fletcher’s book on battery history, Goodenough replaced flammable lithium metal in the cathode, the battery’s negatively-charged electrode, with cobalt oxide. Stanley Whittingham, a British-born American Exxon scientist, was the first to try using lithium for batteries. Goodenough, who died last week aged 100, became the oldest Nobel Prize winner in 2019. Instead, he moved to Oxford University and invented the practical lithium battery. History could have been very different had John Goodenough accepted the Shah of Iran’s 1974 offer of $7 million to found a solar research institute.
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