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Chemistry Nobel Goes to Lithium Battery Innovators
- michannne 7y agoWell deserved. We would not be anywhere where we are today without Li-ion batteries. "Goodenough" is also a surname I have never heard in my life and it is as odd as I expected it to be.
- photon-torpedo 7y agoNot so rare perhaps. London has a Goodenough College, presumably named after someone by that name.
- phil_folrida 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Goodenough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Goodenough Last name became a necessity when governments introduced personal taxation(the Poll Tax).
- irrational 7y agoYou can see here https://projects.newsday.com/databases/long-island/census-last-names/?where=name^goodenough&offset=0 https://projects.newsday.com/databases/long-island/census-la... the number of people in the US Census with that surname.
- dmix 7y ago1,656
- phjesusthatguy3 7y agoI used to live near a Goodnuff funeral home.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoI live near "Dick Witham's Used Cars"! So there are plenty of unusual surnames around.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoReally! https://www.dickwitham.net/used-inventory/index.htm https://www.dickwitham.net/used-inventory/index.htm
- schoen 7y agoIf you've seen the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, the antagonist Boris Badenov's name is a joke on Boris Godunov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Godunov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Godunov
- dang 7y agoThere have been several previous HN discussions about him and his work: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=goodenough&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... You have to scroll back through the flurry from today of course. I have a feeling that the name is a variant of the much more common "Goodnow", but can't remember where I got that notion.
- searine 7y agoAside from the topic, which is interesting in its own right, I find it neat that the prize went to faculty at lesser known universities. Nobody is surprised to see Harvard or Oxford listed. SUNY at Binghamton however is an outlier. Congrats to SUNY.
- leemailll 7y agoSUNY stony brook has several laureates https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/provost/faculty/awards/awards-notable#view-nobel https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/provost/faculty/awards/aw...
- cagenut 7y agoI consider it a glitch in the simulation that the guy who may have saved us from self-immolating on carbon with an alternative that may prove out to be just barely good enough... is named Goodenough.
- vharuck 7y agoSituations like convince me the universe is a lazy writer.
- ASTP001 7y agoLast Name: "Lazywriter"
- MS90 7y agoHis middle initial is B as well. Johnny B. Goodenough
- BurningFrog 7y agoBorn in 1922, so the "parents were Chuck Berry fans" theory is out.
- imgabe 7y agoMaybe Chuck Berry wrote the song about him
- GCA10 7y ago"He never ever learned to read and write so well, but he could drive enough current to win a Nobel."
- jjtheblunt 7y agothat's got to be one of the funniest things i've read in a long time.
- 7y ago
- privacy_esq 7y agoI went to SUNY Binghamton for undergrad. Great school and exciting to see!
- marrowgari 7y agoAs someone who grew up in the triple cities (surrounding Binghamton area) I'm sorry but also what exciting news.
- thebenedict 7y agoMe too -- studied Materials Science while Dr. Whittingham was department co-chair circa 2005. I never worked with him but it's a happy surprise to see him and Binghamton in the news.
- excalibur 7y agoBetter late than never!
- KIFulgore 7y agoNo kidding... the Nobel committee seems to aim for nearly-posthumous far too often.
- imvetri 7y agoShouldn't they be accountable for toxicity in environment.
- simonh 7y agoWhy do you think they hold responsibility for the actions of others?
- theandrewbailey 7y agoI listened to an interview with Goodenough last month. Pretty interesting story. https://cen.acs.org/people/profiles/Podcast-97-lithium-ion-battery/97/i35 https://cen.acs.org/people/profiles/Podcast-97-lithium-ion-b...
- selimthegrim 7y agoGoodenough is making a physics pun with “Braga glass” that the interviewers don’t catch - there is a well known phenomenon in solid state physics called a Bragg glass https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03267-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03267-z https://www.nature.com/articles/35096534 https://www.nature.com/articles/35096534 also arXiv here (https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0110592 https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0110592)
- tinganho 7y agoIs it good enough to brag about it?
- orliesaurus 7y agoweirdly enough a few months ago (maybe like a close to a year...) someone on HN shared an article on J.B. Goodenough which I had read. Today, before clicking on the link I assumed because of the fact that someone had shared the article here before, that he would be one of the Innovators who had won the Nobel. Thanks HN for making me learn and remember little details like this!
- bvssatish 7y agoLong overdue.
- Merrill 7y agoIt appears that Whittingham did his work at Exxon, and Yoshino did his at Asahi Kasei. So both were at industrial research labs when they did the Nobel prize-winning work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Stanley_Whittingham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Stanley_Whittingham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Yoshino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Yoshino
- MichaelApproved 7y agoHow does the prize money work in relation to the employer? If they did the work as part of their employment, would the employer have a claim to that money?
- BurningFrog 7y agoThis is an individual prize unrelated to "intellectual property".
- ajross 7y agoIt's certainly not impossible that you could have an employment contract where the employee agrees to assign rights to stuff like prize money to the employer. I'd be shocked beyond belief if such a contract existed here though.
- ceejayoz 7y ago> I'd be shocked beyond belief if such a contract existed here though. Even if it existed, the PR backlash of "Exxon steals Nobel Prize from scientist" would probably prevent its enforcement.
- elamje 7y agoIf you want to see an accomplished life, look up John Goodenough on Wikipedia. Casually fought in WWII, developed Lithium-Ion, still going strong in his 90’s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Goodenough https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Goodenough
- peterholcomb 7y agoIt would have been pretty heartbreaking (to me at least) for him to have passed before getting the Nobel. Glad they finally gave it to him.
- labster 7y agoWould have been impossible too: Nobel Prizes are bestowed only on the living, so as to fund their research.
- ericmcer 7y agoIt's really inspiring to see someone doing some of their most important work after they are 50+ years old.
- Gibbon1 7y agoYou can look up Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson who produced probably the first high efficiency[1] silicon solar cells in the mid 1950's. They were all in their late 40's early 50's at the time. [1] Six percent!!!
- BurningFrog 7y agoSo in a way, these guys are the fathers of the modern cell phone.
- scrumbledober 7y agoJohnny B Good (enough)
- Robotbeat 7y agoI consider rechargeable lithium chemistry batteries just as crucial to the 21st century as the internal combustion engine was to the 20th. And we're only two decades in. 1) Practical electric cars. 2) Practical and scalable (both directions) and geographically independent grid storage. 3) High performance cellphones and smartphones. 4) Practical laptops and tablets. 5) Other wearable smart devices (smartwatches, portable VR/AR, fitness trackers, etc) 6) Medical devices (insulin pumps, CPAP, wearable artificial kidneys, portable oxygen generators, portable artificial heart, etc) 7) Electric trucks. 8) Electric aircraft (low range now, will soon be 1000km range, eventually will get long range and full size using more advanced chemistries like lithium sulfur, lithium anode, or even lithium air in a few decades). 9) Battery electric trains (including things like Hyperloop or Loop people movers). 10) Battery electric ships. 11) E-cigarrettes. 12) Various personal mobility devices like e-scooters, those funny hoverboard things, e-bikes, etc. 13) Lightweight spacecraft energy storage. 14) Aerial Drones. Both the ubiquitous quadcopter/DJI types and the more advanced winged flight delivery drones like Zipline is using to revolutionize high speed medical product delivery in places like infrastructure-hobbled Africa or rural India and may eventually become commonplace in the rest of the world for more products. 15) Greatly enhanced submarine propulsion, especially for underwater drones. (I have a feeling we're just scratching the surface with this one.) 16) Robotic prosthetics/assistance devices. 17) Animal or humanoid robotics like Boston Dynamics. 18) Ground based delivery drones. 19) Other ground-based drones like more compact robotic vacuums, those silly robotic trashcans, etc. 20) Secondary power sources, like for hybrid cars or APUs for aircraft or launch vehicles (such as SpaceX's Starship). It's actually remarkable how big of an impact lithium ion batteries have already had. In some cases, it's just significantly extending the performance and convenience of things already marginally viable using lead acid or NiMH batteries, and in others it's truly enabling. And we're just getting started. I truly believe the impact of the rechargeable lithium chemistry battery in the 21st Century will be just as great or greater than the internal combustion was for the 20th century. So this prize is well-earned.
- cjbenedikt 7y ago...and how big an impact mining it will have on environment and water use...just saying
- pier25 7y agoClean, sustainable, and efficient energy storage is probably the most important thing humanity needs right now. The big problem with renewable energy is that generally it's not available on demand.
- manfredo 7y agoSolved by nuclear, which is renewable through uranium seawater extraction.
- pier25 7y agoAFAIK uranium is not a renewable energy source since it is finite and does not replenish itself. Am I missing something?
- manfredo 7y agoUranium is dissolved in seawater, which can be extracted [1]. When the portion of uranium in seawater drops, more uranium in the crust gets dissolved into seawater. It's estimated that about 100 billion tons of uranium can be extracted in this method, enough to power humanity for millions of years [2]. If you want to get pedantic, there is a finite amount of fissile material. But the same applies to solar power: there's a finite amount of hydrogen in the sun. Entropy dictates that energy is finite, thus there's no such thing as a truly renewable energy source. 1. https://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=4514 https://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=4514 2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-s...
- pier25 7y agoThanks I didn't know about the possibility of dissolving uranium into seawater.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y agoNuclear is an economic un-reality. In theory, with large-scale cooperative government support, nuclear can happen. We can develop the next generation of nuclear infrastructure and have safe and affordable generation. Without that, nuclear is an un-economic pipe-dream that gets more expensive as renewable generation gets more affordable. Realistically, with over-provisioning, grid upgrades, and modest lithium battery storage, renewables can and will scale.
- archeantus 7y agoIt's fascinating to look at what this technology (not perfect, but definitely Goodenough) has accomplished. And it is also crazy to think that it was almost more of a discovery, than an invention. Does this mean that the next breakthrough is hiding in plain sight, waiting for someone to put the perfect cocktail of raw materials together? I have no bg in chemistry, but the thought of being part of making a next-level battery sounds very exciting.
- amelius 7y agoPerhaps someone could automate the discovery process: build a robot that mixes stuff together, then test how well it works as a battery, then make incremental improvements perhaps using a genetic algorithm.
- vmurthy 7y agoThere might be a better way: Only simulate the mixing and identify high probability cocktails and then let a robot mix stuff together. Applicable to Pharma industry, too.
- selimthegrim 7y agoPeople have done it for photoelectrochemical cells like Nate Lewis at Caltech
- anderspitman 7y agoThe batteries in the banner image look to be 18650s, an extremely popular lion form factor. There are more than 7000 of them in each Tesla battery.
- Tuxer 7y agoTesla moved to 21700 on model 3 and newer models
- anderspitman 7y agoApparently my information is out of date, thanks.
- throwawaybbq1 7y agoI was at an event today where Al Gore spoke positively about LiON battery as energy storage. I was a bit surprised .. is this sustainable tech?
- throwawaybbq1 7y agoThere are two issues that come to mind .. do we have enough materials to make more and more LiON batteries (grid level storage) and are these things recyclable/not going to mess up the Earth?
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y agoUltimately, yes. There are a variety of lithium battery technologies, so it's important to recognize that there are differences, and that the state-of-the-art does change with some frequency. But, if nothing else, the metal inputs to battery production can be smelted and recovered, and Lithium is plentiful. "Good" recycling of batteries would involve recovering the electrode materials directly and easily 'refreshing' them. This would make batteries very sustainable. Work on developing this process for various chemistries is ongoing, but not yet ready. Research and development of recycling-friendly chemistries and production is just beginning. https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-recycling-lithium/97/i28 https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-re... The batteries themselves will be getting much more durable. A JES article was recently published that made quite a few headlines as a 'million mile' car battery, but it's not hype. http://jes.ecsdl.org/content/166/13/A3031 http://jes.ecsdl.org/content/166/13/A3031 This is extant technology (indeed, at least 3 years old) that's proving to be exceptionally durable. This gives batteries at least two decades of nearly-full capacity, with the potential to last much longer with useful capacity. We're not there yet, but there's no physical or chemical reason that Lithium battery technology can't be sustainable.