Nobel laureate John Goodenough passes away at the age of 100

The world's oldest Nobel prize winner, John Goodenough, who was a pioneer in the development of lithium-ion batteries, passed away at the age of 100 on Sunday.

He “was a leader at the cutting edge of scientific research throughout the many decades of his career," said Jay Hartzell, President of the University of Texas at Austin where Goodenough was a faculty member for 37 years.

He played a crucial role in developing the lithium-ion batteries that today power millions of electric vehicles around the globe.

Goodenough received the 2019 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, along with Britain's Stanley Whittingham and Japan's Akira Yoshino, for their respective research into lithium-ion batteries. He was 97 at that time which made him the oldest recipient of a Nobel Prize.

"This rechargeable battery laid the foundation of wireless electronics such as mobile phones and laptops," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on making the award.

"It also makes a fossil fuel-free world possible, as it is used for everything from powering electric cars to storing energy from renewable sources."

Goodenough and his team from the university were working on finding new directions for energy storage, in recent years, which included a “glass” battery with solid-state electrolytes and lithium or sodium metal electrodes.

He was the first to develop lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathodes as an alternative to nickel- and cobalt-based cathodes.

According to the experts, LFP is rapidly overtaking more-expensive nickel cobalt manganese in electric vehicle batteries, as it uses materials that are more abundant and sustainable at a much lower cost.

Goodenough was born in Germany on July 25, 1922, to American parents.

After completing his bachelor's in mathematics at Yale University, Goodenough received a master's and a PhD in physics from the University of Chicago. He then became a researcher and team leader at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later headed the inorganic chemistry lab at the University of Oxford.

(With inputs from agencies)

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