Wednesday, 7 May 2025
In the beginning, I would like to share one story with you. Do you know what power your smartphone? Or your iPad nowadays? The answer is “ Lithium-ion battery”.
In 2019, three scientists were awarded the Nobel prize in Chemistry due to their contribution to developing this, “Lithium-ion battery”. Surprisingly, one of the awardees, Prof. John B. Goodenough, struggled with dyslexia when he was a child. It was really hard for him to read and write, and therefore, he was quite weak in English and History. Maybe just like some of you. But he knew what he is good at, Science and Mathematics. And later, he got his degree in Math. Then he served as a meteorologist during World War II.
After that, he went to the University of Chicago to further his study in Physics. During the registration, the officer said to him, “Don’t you know that anybody who had done anything interesting in physics had done it by the time he was your age? And you want to begin?” At the time, Prof. Goodenough was just 24 years old. Obviously, it was not a very nice welcome to Prof. Goodenough. However, with his love of science, he finally got his Ph.D. in 1952.
During the late 1970s, when he was 54, he was the head of the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory at Oxford, focusing on battery technology. To make a lightweight, rechargeable, and powerful battery, scientists decided to use titanium disulphide as the electrode for lithium-ion battery. But unfortunately, this resulted in the voltage of the battery was just two volts. Four years later, Prof. Goodenough made a remarkable breakthrough by using cobalt oxide as the electrode material. This successfully doubled the voltage of the battery to four volts and would lead to much more powerful batteries. And now, Prof. Goodenough is the oldest Nobel prize laureate in History and he stills works at the university at age 100.
For Prof. Goodenough, with love of Science, he could endure his learning difficulty; with love, he could endure the sarcasm from the registration officer; with love; he can endure all adversities in research and dedicate his life to science.
Mr Lee KW
19 January 2023