When going out, only one thing is allowed, and many people will choose mobile phones; To buy your first car, you may want to try a new energy electric car & HELIP; …
These common choices in our daily life all exist because of the same thing — — Lithium battery.
At 17: 45 Beijing time yesterday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Professor John B Goodenough, Professor Stanley Whittingham and Professor Yoshino in recognition of their contributions to the development of lithium batteries.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry once again makes people feel that they have flown from the top of the academic pyramid to ordinary people. The distance is so close, even within reach.
With the lightest metal in the world
Win the heaviest prize in the world
When the power of your mobile phone is only 10%, I believe that many people’s anxiety and tension have reached the peak. At this time, if you suddenly find a charging treasure, it seems that life has been saved at that moment.
Modern people can’t imagine life without the assistance of lithium batteries.
Therefore, when the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to three scientists from the United States, Britain and Japan who made outstanding contributions to the development of lithium batteries, people at the scene were extremely interested in it.
Lithium, the least dense and lightest metal in the world.
Although it is light and small, it has a big temper — — It is the most active metal among known elements (including radioactive elements).
Therefore, it has become a very good material for developing batteries, but it has both advantages and disadvantages. When lithium metal is used as the electrode, there are huge hidden dangers — — This kind of battery is easy to catch fire or even explode.
Therefore, if you want to use lithium in the battery, you must control it, and this year’s Nobel Prize winner in chemistry’s achievement actually lies in this.
In other words, if these three scientists didn’t make Li obedient, we would be carrying an explosive bag every day and risking being ignited at any time by calling the Internet.
So, how did they tame lithium?
Originally, Goodenough and others found that manganese spinel is an excellent cathode material with low price, stability and excellent electrical and lithium conductivity. Its decomposition temperature is high, and its oxidation is much lower than that of lithium metal. Even if there is short circuit and overcharge, the danger of combustion and explosion can be avoided.
Now, let’s imagine lithium cobaltate, and imagine it as a sandwich made of cobalt and oxygen. The lithium atom is the ham slice in the middle, which can be easily pulled out, so that the lithium atom can move quickly in the lithium cobaltate crystal — — Therefore, lithium cobaltate can replace metallic lithium as a lithium ion provider in the battery.
At the same time, this oxide can also increase the voltage of the battery and the amount of electricity stored in the battery. More importantly, it is like putting a spell on lithium, making it docile and controllable.
Liberal arts cross science and physics cross chemistry.
Hard core life of 97-year-old father
After briefly talking about the principle of lithium batteries, let’s talk about these three award-winning legends.
At the age of 97, Goodenough is the oldest Nobel Prize winner so far.
The old man’s life is quite hard — — After Goodenough was admitted to Yale University, he actually chose classical literature and philosophy as his first major. In order to get credit, he took two chemistry courses. When he graduated, his degree turned out to be a bachelor of mathematics. Because a math professor saw his talent, he was persuaded from a liberal arts student to a science student studying mathematics.
Then, World War II broke out, and Goodenough joined the US Air Force. After retiring, at the age of 30, he went to the University of Chicago to study physics, and studied solid-state physics. After graduation, he went to Lincoln Laboratory of MIT and made contributions to the development of random access memory. This technology is the later computer memory.
This wave of cross-border is not over yet — — In Lincoln Lab, Goodenough studied sodium-sulfur batteries. But it was not until 1976, at the age of 54, that he entered the Department of Chemistry of Oxford University in England, and his research field shifted to batteries, and he studied lithium cobaltate.
That is, when Goodenough went to Oxford University, England, Whitingham, the founder of rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and his team had made the world’s first rechargeable lithium-ion battery — — They creatively used titanium sulfide as the cathode material and lithium metal as the cathode material. When charging, lithium ions move from the positive electrode to the negative electrode, and the discharge returns to the positive electrode, and so on.
In 1977, the two high-energy scientists also co-published a book in the field of solid-state energy chemistry.
On the other side of the globe, some Japanese companies, especially Sony, had made great progress in the commercialization of lithium rechargeable batteries and held a large number of patents.
Akira Yoshino, after graduating from the Petrochemical Department of the Faculty of Engineering of Kyoto University with a master’s degree in engineering, directly entered Asahi Kasei Industrial Co., Ltd. In 1981, the research and development of lithium batteries began.
He plays the role of matchmaker — — After establishing the basic framework of lithium-ion batteries, Yoshino made use of graphite, which has been invented by Sony Corporation of Japan and is used as the negative electrode of lithium batteries, with stable structure and low price, to draw a red line for lithium cobaltate as the positive electrode.
In 1983, Yoshino made the world’s first rechargeable lithium-ion battery prototype by using lithium cobaltate cathode and polyacetylene anode. In 1985, many technical problems were overcome, metal lithium was completely eliminated, and the basic concept of rechargeable lithium-containing alkaline lithium-ion battery was established, and modern lithium-ion battery was born. In 1991, Sony released the first commercial lithium-ion battery in human history.
"I’m only in my 90 s and I still have time."
Three scientists are still working at an advanced age.
Although the principle of the battery looks simple, the design and manufacturing process of the battery is very complicated. Until now, some alkaline batteries invented in the 19th century are still in use. It can be seen how difficult it is to invent and improve a new battery.
This award is well deserved.
In the "Nobel Prize" field, Goodenough is somewhat known as "Haruki Murakami" in the chemical field — — The voice is very high, "running with you" for many years.
It is understood that 97-year-old Goodenough is still engaged in energy research.
"I want to solve this problem before I die. I am only in my 90 s and I still have time." Goodenough hopes to develop solid-state batteries with high energy density and high safety, so that electric vehicles can replace high-capacity batteries of gasoline vehicles. He likes his metaphor of "crawling tortoise". "This kind of crawling throughout your life may bring benefits, especially if you cross different fields and collect all kinds of clues all the way. You have to have a lot of experience to integrate different ideas. "
Whitingham, 78, is still thinking and working. He has also co-written books to observe and analyze the history, evolution and future state of energy storage, which describes the future development of lithium batteries.
Just after being told that he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 71-year-old Akira Yoshino replied in an interview with the media: "Curiosity" is the biggest driving force. Prior to this, Akira Yoshino said that battery technology is a complex and difficult interdisciplinary field, and its development needs many experts. Lithium-ion batteries are the result of collective wisdom.
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