Image: Niklas Elmehed, Nobel Media
M Stanley Whittingham shares this year’s award for helping to create rechargeable batteries
A British-born scientist has been awarded one third of this year’s Nobel prize in chemistry for his part in the development of lithium-ion batteries.
M Stanley Whittingham, born in Nottingham in the UK in 1941, is director of the Institute for Materials Research and the materials, science and engineering programme at Binghamton University in New York. Whittingham holds a PhD from the University of Oxford.
He shares the prize of 9 million Swedish kronor (£740,000) with John Goodenough, an American chemist at the University of Texas at Austin, and Akira Yoshino from Meijo University in Japan.
Making the announcement in Stockholm on 9 October, Göran Hansson, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said: “This year’s prize is about a rechargeable world.”
Lithium-ion batteries are used globally to power portable electronic devices such as mobile phones and laptops. They have also helped to enable the development of long-range electric cars and created storage capabilities for wind and solar power.
In a statement, Nobel committee members said: “Lithium-ion batteries have revolutionised our lives since they first entered the market in 1991. They have laid the foundation of a wireless, fossil fuel-free society, and are of the greatest benefit to humankind.”
Whittingham first began working on methods that could lead towards fossil-free power during the oil crisis of the 1970s. By experimenting with conductive materials, he created the basis for a rechargeable battery that would go on to house lithium ions.
He is the second British-born scientist to receive a Nobel prize this year. University of Oxford researcher Peter Ratcliffe was one of three laureates to receive the 2019 prize in physiology or medicine alongside William Kaelin Jr and Gregg Semenza “for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability”.
At 97 years old, Goodenough becomes the oldest person ever to receive a Nobel prize.
He also worked at the University of Oxford, where he was based during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
“It’s important to recognise that this research was originally fundamental—John Goodenough conducted much of his initial research when he was head of inorganic chemistry at the University of Oxford, so this is good recognition for UK science,” Carol Robinson, president of the Royal Society of Chemistry, told the Science Media Centre.
“It is now vital that governments and funders around the world continue to support the creative discovery science that can provide a truly sustainable future for energy,” she added.
“Lithium-ion batteries are going to be one of the key enabling technologies of the 21st century,” said Gregory Offer, reader in mechanical engineering at Imperial College London. “They have already underpinned the mobile revolution, and are now essential to help us solve the problem of climate change by electrifying transport and storing renewable electricity generation.”
Paul Coxon, from the department of materials science and metallurgy at the University of Cambridge, said: “All three Nobel winners played vital roles in this energy storage revolution, which has now placed power in our pockets. It’s a wonderful example of taking research from the lab—we can literally hold the result in our hands.”