2017:
At the age of 57, John B. Goodenough invented the lithium battery which powers all our smart phones, tablets and laptops – as well as electric cars.
37 years later at the age of 94, John has unveiled a new, ultra-efficient, low-cost battery that uses a sodium or lithium-coated glass electrolyte. It will dwarf his original invention and make it redundant.
The new glass battery will allow electric cars to go three times the distance, and recharge in minutes instead of hours. It’s also far safer as it won’t explode and can operate in sub-zero temperatures.
The new glass battery will power our future solar-powered and electric vehicles, homes and industries.
But John isn’t finished yet. He still works every day as a Professor at the University of Texas.
John believes humanity has a 30-year window to come up with an even more powerful ‘super battery’ to take us entirely off fossil fuels, before the environmental damage we are creating becomes irreversible, and says, “I want to solve this problem before my chips are in ….. I still have time to go.”
So if you ever think it’s too late to be successful, just remember John B. Goodenough.
More details at https://news.utexas.edu/2017/02/28/goodenough-introduces-new-battery-technology
John Bannister Goodenough (1922-2023) was an American materials scientist, a solid-state physicist, and a Nobel laureate in chemistry. The John B. Goodenough Award was established by The Electrochemical Society, USA, in 2022 to recognise distinguished contributions to the fundamental and technological aspects of electrochemical materials science and engineering. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to materials innovations in the areas of batteries, solid ion conductors, fuel cells, transition-metal oxides, and/or magnetic materials.