Scientists Who Built Lithium-Ion Battery Powering Our Tech Life Win 2019 Nobel Chemistry Prize

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to John B Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for their contribution in the development of lithium-ion batteries.

The trio has been working on the development of lithium-ion batteries since the 1970s.

Nobel Foundation

They've been awarded nine million Swedish kronor, which is approximately Rs 6.45 crores that will be shared among the three scientists.

The Nobel Foundation said in a statement, "Through their work, this year's Chemistry Laureates have laid the foundation of a wireless, fossil-fuel-free society."

John B. Goodenough was born in 1922 in Jena, Germany. He's completed his Ph.D. in 1952 from the University of Chicago, USA. He's currently a part of Virginia H. Cockrell Chair in Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, USA.

M. Stanley Whittingham was born in 1941 in the UK. He completed his Ph.D. in 1968 from Oxford University, UK. He currently teaches at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Akira Yoshino was born in 1948 in Suita, Japan. He completed his Ph.D. in 2005 from Osaka University, Japan. He is an Honorary Fellow at Asahi Kasei Corporation, Tokyo, Japan as well as teaches at Meijo University in Nagoya, Japan.

The researchers developed a light-weight hardwearing battery that could be charged hundreds of times before its performance dropped. The Nobel Foundation further added, "The advantage of lithium-ion batteries is that they are not based upon chemical reactions that break down the electrodes, but upon lithium ions flowing back and forth between the anode and cathode."

Representative Image: Rawpixel

The 2019 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to three people -- Canadian scientist James Peebles for his theories about the evolution of the universe, who got half the prize. The other half was awarded to the Swiss astronomers, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, for their discovery of the first exoplanet beyond our solar system.

The 2019 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine was awarded to Professor William G. Kaelin Jr, Sir Peter J. Radcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza for their discovery which unravelled the molecular machinery that monitors and regulates the activity of genes with respect to varying oxygen levels.