After the award of the Nobel Prize in Medicine and the Nobel Prize in Physics, it was the turn of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Of the five jobs in the running, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded John B. Goodenough, Akira Yoshino and Stanley Whittingham for developing lithium batteries . Lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized our lives and are used in everything from mobile phones to laptops to electric vehicles. Through their work, this year’s Chemistry laureates have laid the foundations for a society without wires and fossil fuels .
The other candidates have been: Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Feng Zhang, pioneers in the Crispr technique, which allows gene editing; Rolf Huisgen and Morten Meldal, for the development of cycloaddition reactions; Edwin Southern for inventing a laboratory technique used to detect a specific DNA sequence in a blood or tissue sample; Marvin Caruthers, Leroy Hood, and Michael Hunkapiller for pioneering protein sequencing and DNA synthesis tools.
We already have it very internalized and we hardly give it value but the truth is that lithium batteries have greatly facilitated our lives and it is that they allow us to charge the legion of portable electronic devices that we have . We are talking about mobile phones, laptops, cameras and other electronic gadgets without cables . Lithium-ion batteries have also enabled the development of long-range electric cars and the storage of energy from renewable sources, such as solar and wind, thus moving towards a society free of fossil fuels.
The basis of the lithium-ion battery is located during the oil crisis in the 70s . Stanley Whittingham worked on developing methods that could lead to the elimination of fossil fuels in energy technologies. He began investigating superconductors and discovered an extremely energy-rich material, which he used to create an innovative cathode in a lithium battery. It was made of titanium disulfide which, on a molecular level, has spaces that can house (intercalate) lithium ions.
The battery’s anode was partially made of metallic lithium, which has a strong impulse to release electrons. This resulted in a battery that literally had great potential, just over two volts. However, metallic lithium is reactive and the battery was too explosive to be viable.
John Goodenough predicted that the cathode could have even greater potential if it was made using a metal oxide instead of a metal sulfide. After a systematic search, in 1980 he showed that cobalt oxide interspersed with lithium ions could produce up to four volts . This was a major advance that led to the creation of more powerful batteries.
Using the Goodenough cathode as a base, Akira Yoshino created the first commercially viable lithium-ion battery in 1985 . Instead of using reactive lithium at the anode, he used petroleum coke, a carbon material that, like cobalt oxide on the cathode, can intercalate lithium ions.
The result was a strong, lightweight battery that could be charged hundreds of times before its performance was reduced. The advantage of lithium ion batteries is that they are not based on chemical reactions that break down the electrodes but on lithium ions that flow between the anode and the cathode.
Lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized our lives since they came on the market in 1991. They have helped lay the foundation for a fossil-fuel-free and wireless society as well as providing one of the greatest benefits to humanity.
Last year half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Frances H. Arnold, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, for having carried out the first directed evolution of enzymes thanks to which biofuels to pharmaceutical products can be produced. The other half went to George P. Smith of the University of Missouri and Sir Gregory P. Winter, a member of the Medical Research Council of the Cambridge Molecular Biology Laboratory, for developing a method called phage display that produces antibodies. capable of neutralizing toxins and fighting autoimmune diseases. In some cases, even metastatic cancer is cured.
Winning a Nobel Prize, in addition to recognition for the important work done, means pocketing 825,000 euros , money that is divided by the number of winners of each award.
Nobel Prizes have been awarded since 1901 following the guidelines that the chemist Alfred Nobel, who died five years earlier, left written in his will. Chemistry was precisely the second subject to be awarded that Nobel mentioned in his will.
The award ceremony takes place in Stockholm every December 10 , the date of Alfred Nobel’s death.
