- Title: Battery pioneers who made mobile revolution possible win Nobel chemistry prize
- Date: 9th October 2019
- Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (OCTOBER 9, 2019) (REUTERS) NOBEL PRIZE FOR CHEMISTRY WINNER JOHN GOODENOUGH LISTENING TO QUESTION DURING NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) NOBEL PRIZE FOR CHEMISTRY WINNER, JOHN GOODENOUGH, SAYING: "I didn't ever lobby for or look forward to this particular day but I'm very happy that it's arrived. It's very nice to receive a recognition, yes." CAMERA OPERATOR FILMING (SOUNDBITE) (English) NOBEL PRIZE FOR CHEMISTRY WINNER, JOHN GOODENOUGH, SAYING: "I had somebody with a cellphone in my room and they told me that it had happened and so... life is full of surprises (HE LAUGHS)." GOODENOUGH'S HANDS (SOUNDBITE) (English) NOBEL PRIZE FOR CHEMISTRY WINNER, JOHN GOODENOUGH, SAYING: "It's very important for the university that I work for because when they get a little bit of notoriety like that, it'll be easier for them to raise money (HE LAUGHS)." GOODENOUGH'S FACE (SOUNDBITE) (English) NOBEL PRIZE FOR CHEMISTRY WINNER, JOHN GOODENOUGH, SAYING: "Immediately the Sony people at Sony corporation said, ah that's what we need to the wireless revolution so they did the battery development that was necessary to make a commercial cell Cobolt LiCoO2, once they had a commercial cell, then they could do the wireless revolution so that's how that one went and you have to give the people at Sony corporation some credit for having taken the intellectual property and done the battery development that was necessary to make a commercial product." REPORTER ASKING QUESTIONS (SOUNDBITE) (English) NOBEL PRIZE FOR CHEMISTRY WINNER, JOHN GOODENOUGH, SAYING: "I didn't really care too much about the money. The lawyers always end up with the money. The lawyers always end up with the money, everything I've ever done, the lawyers have always ended up with all the money." GOODENOUGH LISTENING TO A QUESTION DURING NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) NOBEL PRIZE FOR CHEMISTRY WINNER, JOHN GOODENOUGH, SAYING: "You know, those of us who are technologists, we make something but it's morally neutral, it always depends upon how people use it. People can use the lithium-ion battery to blow up things or they can use the lithium-ion battery as way we intended it to be used. So, every technology advance is morally neutral, it's dependent upon how people use it." GOODENOUGH LAUGHING DURING NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) NOBEL PRIZE FOR CHEMISTRY WINNER, JOHN GOODENOUGH, SAYING: "Climate change is coming from the burning of fossil fuels of course, that's known, and we also know that that's not a sustainable option. So, I think the lithium-ion battery people are trying very hard with the lithium-ion battery to do electric cars. It always runs a problem because you cannot charge it too fast or you plate lithium on the carbon and then you have the problem of dendrites and fires. But we need electric cars. We need to find a way to emancipate ourselves from our dependence on the burning of fossil fuels, so people are working in that direction and they'll get there." NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS (SOUNDBITE) (English) NOBEL PRIZE FOR CHEMISTRY WINNER, JOHN GOODENOUGH, SAYING: "I don't know where I started with this but anyway, life is a journey and I am very grateful for the invitation I had to come to the University of Oxford and pretend I was a chemist (LAUGHS)."
- Embargoed: 23rd October 2019 17:44
- Keywords: nobel prize chemistry winner john goodenough Cobolt LiCoO2 rechargeable lithium-ion batteries
- Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
- City: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Science
- Reuters ID: LVA001B0DNHAF
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Three scientists have won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for putting power in people's pockets by developing rechargeable lithium-ion batteries which made the global information technology, mobile and fossil-fuel free revolutions possible.
American John Goodenough, at 97, became the oldest winner of a Nobel prize and shares the 9 million Swedish crown ($906,000) award equally with Stanley Whittingham from Britain and Akira Yoshino of Japan, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Nobel Committee said on Wednesday (October 9).
With peals of infectious laughter, Goodenough asked reporters at a hastily called news conference in London to speak up with their questions so that his "old ears" could hear.
He had not been expecting to win a Nobel prize, he said, but was "very happy" to get it.
"Life is full of surprises," he said after popping a bottle of champagne in celebration.
After Whittingham developed the first functional lithium battery in the early 1970s, Goodenough doubled the battery's potential in the following decade. Yoshino then eliminated pure lithium from the battery, making it much safer to use.
The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were created and funded in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901.
The Nobel prizes for medicine and physics were awarded earlier this week. The awards for literature, peace and economics will be announced in the next few days.
(Production: Ben Makori, Dina Selim) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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