Development of Lithium-Ion Batteries Wins Nobel Prize

We now live in a rechargeable world built on lithium (Li)-ion batteries (LIBs).In October 2019, three scientists/engineers who played pivotal roles in the development of LIB were each honoured with a one-third share of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (Fig. 1) [1].The LIB story began in the 1970s with M. Stanley Whittingham, now at Binghamton University, State University of New York, who discovered a hugely energy-rich material-titanium disulfide-that he used to create a novel cathode in a lithium battery.The battery, in which positively charged lithium ions moved back and forth between the electrodes during its charge/discharge cycle, had a potential of over two volts, but its anode contained highly reactive metallic lithium and therefore had a tendency to explode.The next chapter features John B. Goodenough, now with the University of Texas at Austin, who at age 97 is the oldest recipient of a Nobel Prize in history.He predicted that a metal oxide would provide greater potential than a metal sulfide, and in 1980 showed that a lithium battery with a cobalt oxide cathode could hit four volts.The story was completed by Akira Yoshino, now at Meijo University in Nagoya, Japan.In 1985, he removed reactive lithium from the anode and used petroleum coke instead, creating a safer, commercially-viable LIB.Now ubiquitous, LIBs powered the boom in portable devices, most notably cell phones and laptops, and made possible the ongoing revolution in electric vehicles (EVs).But the story goes on.A relentless drive for improved performance is powering research on novel Li chemistries and battery configurations.Today's LIB technology has matured for four decades, and it is getting increasingly difficult to squeeze out more performance.Changes in battery technology are also being driven by environmental and ethical impacts of battery production, which have come into sharper focus.Research on competing solid-state battery technologies is active as well.At the start of 2020, Dr. Mahdokht Shaibani, a research fellow in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Monash University in Victoria, Australia, and colleagues made headlines with a breakthrough in lithium-sulfur batteries [2].A sulfur-based cathode can store considerably more energy than those used in conventional LIBs, but it undergoes a large volume change (about 78%) during use as it takes in and releases lithium.This causes sulfur electrodes to disintegrate with use, rapidly losing capacity.