2023-06-27 15:28:23
One of the fathers of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, American physicist John Goodenough, has died at the age of 100, his university in Austin, Texas announced on Tuesday. He had received the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with his British and Japanese co-inventors.
Born in 1922 in Germany but raised and trained in the United States, John Goodenough died on Sunday, said the University of Texas, which he joined in 1986 at age 64 and where he taught at the school of Cockrell engineers.
He “leaves an incalculable legacy as a scientist – his discoveries have improved the lives of billions of people around the world,” said Jay Hartzell, president of the University of Texas, in a statement.
John Goodenough remains to this day the oldest Nobel laureate in history, received at the age of 97 along with British chemist Stanley Whittingham, born in 1941, and Japanese chemist Akira Yoshino, born in 1948.
>> Review on this subject the report of 12:45: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to a trio of researchers for the development of lithium-ion batteries. / 12:45 p.m. / 18 sec. / October 9, 2019
In the wake of the oil crises of the 1970s, Stanley Whittingham, now a professor at Binghamton University in New York State, but then working for the oil company Exxon, set out to find sources of energy non-fossils. This is how he discovered a method to produce energy from lithium, a metal so light that it floats on water.
“They created a rechargeable world”
John Goodenough then bets on increasing the properties of his discovery by producing energy from metal oxide instead of disulphide. In 1980, he demonstrated that the combination of cobalt oxide and lithium ions might produce up to four volts.
From these discoveries, Akira Yoshino, 71, created the first commercial battery in 1985. “They created a rechargeable world”, greeted the Royal Swedish Academy by awarding them Nobel.
“Lithium batteries have revolutionized our lives since they began to be marketed in 1991”, and “for the greatest benefit of humanity”: development of mobility or even access to information and the Internet on a simple mobile phone is now possible for millions of people.
“I am extremely happy that my discovery has helped communication around the world. We need to build relationships, not wars,” said John Goodenough himself when receiving his Nobel Prize. “I’m happy if people use it for good, not for bad,” he added.
“An Incredible Brain”
A graduate of Yale, John Goodenough served during World War II as a meteorologist for the US Army, before a thesis in physics at the University of Chicago in 1952, according to the University of Texas.
He then worked at the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 24 years, laying the foundation for the development of RAM computer memory cards.
He was head of the inorganic chemistry laboratory at Oxford University when he made his discoveries for the lithium battery. “The world is losing an incredible brain and a generous spirit,” said Sharon Wood, vice president of the University of Texas.
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