Fossil fuels should fear this battery visionary
“I’m old enough at 94 to know that you don’t just dismiss something without investigating it a little bit.” John Goodenough, emeritus professor , University of Texas
Most people can’t imagine a world that relies solely on the sun’s energy, whether it is from the rays, wind or ocean waves, but John Goodenough can.
And while many may say Goodenough is just a dreamer, he’s also the scientist who made random access memory possible for computers in the 1950s, coinvented the lithium-ion battery in the 1970s and announced a major breakthrough in battery technology this year.
“I’m interested in putting the oil and gas industry out of business,” Goodenough, emeritus professor at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, said with a laugh. “I believe that modern society has to find a way to free itself from its dependence on fossil fuels.”
Goodenough studied mathematics at Yale and nuclear physics at the University of Chicago, where he wrote a doctoral thesis on solid-state physics. His deep understanding of materials is what led him into computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1950s, where researchers needed an alternative to magnetic tape for digital storage. Goodenough delivered the solution.
From 1976 to 1986, he worked at the University of Oxford leading the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, where he developed the basis for the lithium-ion battery. Many companies ignored his invention, until Sony Corp. commercialized the battery that is now used in almost every mobile phone and laptop computer.
President Barack Obama awarded him the National Medal of Science, the highest U.S.
honor for scientists, engineers and inventors.
“One of the things that I am most pleased about is that I was able to participate and contribute to bringing the concepts of physics and the concepts of chemistry together in the service of engineering,” said Goodenough, who has taught at UT since 1986. “Electrochemistry is only now coming in to its own, and it will bring a big revolution.”
Goodenough’s new lithium- or sodium-glass battery technology promises to speed that process. Working with Maria Helena Braga, an engineering professor at the University of Porto in Portugal, his team has built a battery that can hold three times more energy, charges in minutes rather than hours, works in hot and cold weather, can last for more than 1,500 charging cycles and poses no fire hazard, as current lithium-ion batteries do.
The breakthrough came from an alkali-doped glass developed by Braga that replaces the liquid electrolyte currently used in batteries to separate the positive and negative poles. The researchers published their peer-reviewed findings in the U.K. Royal Society of Chemistry’s journal, and Goodenough promises there are more breakthroughs to come.
“We believe that this can give you the volumetric energy density that is the maximum that you can get and is still cheap,” he said in interview. “We’re in the process of demonstrating and patenting how we can do that. The patent is being typed today.”
If the technology can be commercialized, these batteries will easily compete with internal combustion engines. They could also store wind and solar energy and truck electricity from place to place.
For those who may doubt that battery technology can replace coal, oil and natural gas, Goodenough says: “One has to be careful of one’s prejudices.”
“Ninety-nine and 44/100ths of the things people do or think about are not practical. I quite agree with that,” he said. “But I’m old enough at 94 to know that you don’t just dismiss something without investigating it a little bit.”
That open mind is what led Goodenough to consider Braga’s glass as a possible electrolyte. It was the product of a failed experiment to solve a different engineering problem, but she recognized that its unique qualities could help with batteries.
“Every once in a while, manna comes from heaven and you’re able to keep going with a new tack, and that’s what we’ve done,” he said.
The new technology is attracting attention. Donald Sadoway, a pre-eminent battery researcher at MIT, told the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers magazine Spectrum: “When John Goodenough makes an announcement, I pay attention.”
Google CEO Eric Schmidt tweeted: “John Goodenough, inventor of the lithium battery, has developed the first all-solid-state battery cells. Promising!”
Goodenough says he’s too old to worry about making money from the invention. Instead, he’s only interested in launching humanity on the path to clean energy.
“We have to move toward emancipating ourselves from fossil fuels, and that will go in steps,” he said. “Electricity is the cleanest form of energy, but you don’t want to generate that energy with combustion.”
Goodenough said the university is negotiating with battery manufacturers, and his new batteries could be on the market in as little as two years.
For all of his dreaming, though, Goodenough is realistic about changing the world, something he’s done twice before.
“That will take time, so the people in Houston can relax,” he said. “Because they will still make a lot money from fossil fuels until their retirement.”
“One of the things that I am most pleased about is that I was able to participate and contribute to bringing the concepts of physics and the concepts of chemistry together in the service of engineering.” John Goodenough, emeritus professor , University of Texas