Lithium batteries – their creation, change and use throughout the years

Who is behind lithium batteries?

So, who invented the life-saving batteries? Well, answering this question is not easy. Because the road to the lithium battery like we know it today was long. The British chemist Stanley Whittingham invented the lithium batteries we know today. He did that in the 70s. Crazy to think that just 50 years ago, these batteries were not part of everyone’s daily life.

But there were far more people involved in the process than just Whittingham. Like Lewis Urry, who invented alkaline batteries in the 70s. Dr. John Goodenough also played a huge part in the invention of lithium ion batteries and even won a Nobel prize for it! The man is almost a hundred years old now – but he is still working on projects and inventing things.

History check: How have lithium batteries changed throughout time?

Like it was already mentioned: there were many people involved in the process of inventing the lithium battery. So much so that the actual journey of the lithium battery development began in 1973 when Adam Heller proposed the first draft for lithium batteries. The ones that he created are still being used today in medical equipment! Isn’t that crazy?

The next big milestone in the creation of the lithium battery happened in 1977 when Samar Basu invented an alternative to the lithium metal electrode battery. Just two years later in 1979, John B. Goodenough came into play. He is the one that is known for creating the lithium ion batteries. He was at Oxford University and invented a rechargeable lithium cell. For that, he used lithium cobalt dioxide. Also, he did not work alone, but with Koichi Mizushima, a scientist from Tokyo. They are both responsible for enabling early commercial lithium batteries.

Do you know what Rachid Yazami did in 1980? He is a scientist and inventor from Morocco and he actually proved something important. He demonstrated the reversible electrochemical intercalation of lithium in graphite and with that invented the lithium graphite electrode. Up to 2011, his graphite electrode was actually the most commonly used electrode in lithium batteries worldwide. So what he invented was used for more than 30 years, and even now it is an important factor when creating lithium batteries.

The negative electrode was found by Tokio Yamabe and then researched by Shjzukuni Yata at the beginning of the 1980s. In 1982 Godshall wrote his PHD dissertation for Stanford University about lithium batteries and was even awarded for his discoveries. In 1982 Goodenough and some other scientists developed the manganese spinel, which is a charged cathode material that can be used for lithium-ion batteries. Three years later, Akira Yoshino has created a prototype cell by using carbonaceous materials that were able to have lithium ions inserted as one electrode! This might sound complicated, but the effect that it had was extremely important. It improved the safety of the batteries, which is immensely important if you want to use items in a commercial way.

Then in 1990, Goodenough and Arumugam Manthiram discovered the polyanion class of cathode. Those positive electrodes that contain polyanions are able to produce higher voltages than oxides. This is because of the inductive effect of the polyanion and was a huge discovery!

What new developments for the lithium batteries happened after 1990?

Even after 1990, there were still some new developments to be made and some new discoveries on the horizon. In 1991 Sony released the first lithium battery that you could actually just buy at a local store as a regular person! That was a huge milestone for the industry and for every single individual person. The team that was behind it was from Japan and was led by Yoshio Nishi.

Goodenough still played a significant role in the developments, even in 1996. He and some of his fellow scientists proposed lithium iron phosphate! Two years later, in 1998, the high capacity high voltage lithium-rich NMC cathode materials were discovered by C. S. Johnson and some other scientists.

In 2001 Arumugam Mathiram furthered his studies to make sure that the lithium batteries would become even safer. His breakthrough in 2001 made sure of that. Manthiram and his co-workers found out that the capacity limitations of layered oxide cathodes were a result of chemical instability. They fixed that and made sure that the batteries were even safer to use from then on.

Thanks to Yet-Ming Chiang and some of his MIT students, lithium batteries became stronger in 2002. They discovered that boosting the material’s conductivity with some materials increased the mechanism of the battery. In 2004 he increased the performance of the battery again!

Whittingham and some other scientists reported a new cathode in 2005, which had a high energy density.

In 2011 the lithium-ion battery made up 66% of all batteries that were bought in Japan! All the hard work definitely paid off. Then in 2012, Goodenough, Yazami and Yoshino all received the IEEE Medal for Environmental and Safety Technologies for all of their discoveries regarding the lithium batteries. So it also paid off for them! Many different other awards followed this one in the next few years. Until finally, in 2019, the Chemistry Nobel Prize was awarded to John Goodenough, Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino, the three men known to for developing the lithium-ion battery.

What we love about all of this is that so many people from different countries were involved in the process of inventing lithium batteries and making sure that they are being developed to the best version of the battery there could be!

How do lithium batteries work?

Is it possible to still understand how lithium batteries work even if you do not remember a single fact from your physics lesson in school? It actually is, that is why we have tried to explain how lithium batteries work in an easy way.

What you have to remember for lithium batteries is that they all have positive and negative electrodes and electrolytes. That is why most batteries have a plus and a minus sign on them! The negative electrode of most lithium batteries is made out of carbon and the positive electrode is made from metal oxide. There is also a lithium salt involved! A producer of these batteries can choose what kind of materials they want to use, but the choice will most definitely have an impact on the following parts of the battery:

• the voltage
• the energy density
• the life
• the safety

Why are lithium batteries such a great choice?

You probably already know that there are more batteries on the market than just lithium-ion ones. And the lithium ones are even more expensive than other options, so why do so many people use lithium batteries? The big pro for lithium batteries is that they operate over a bigger spectrum of temperature and also have higher energy densities. They are also very versatile, which makes them easy to work with and easy to use with many different things.

What kind of lithium-ion batteries are available?

There are all kinds of different lithium batteries. Those different types can be divided into four groups:

1. Lithium batteries that are big and are being used in electric vehicles
2. Flat lithium batteries that are used in smartphones and laptops
3. Small batteries that are used in older laptops
4. Large batteries

How lithium batteries were discovered

So we have already figured out who actually was involved in the process of developing the lithium batteries, and we had also stated when exactly which development was made. But we have not necessarily talked about the “How” of it all. But how do scientists make discoveries like this?

Whittingham was one of the biggest contributors to the development of the Lithium batteries. He did his first research regarding this during his time at Stanford University. He then worked for Exxon, where he could further work on his discoveries. But during all of his experiments, he failed a couple of times too. It is a lot of trying again and again, and then eventually having something work out. Just like with most discoveries, probably.

So to answer this question: inventing something that has to do with science, is all about testing and researching. And that is what these great scientists have been doing since the 70s to make sure that the world gets to see the most efficient batteries.

Where are lithium batteries used?

There are so many different uses for lithium batteries! So we decided to create a list with some examples.

• phones
• wireless headphones
• different kinds of toys
• handheld power tools
• appliances
• electric cars
• electrical energy storage systems
• and many more!

Lithium batteries: Fun Facts

We have also gathered ten fun facts all about lithium batteries. Are you ready? So, did you know that…?

1. Lithium itself is extremely reactive! It even reacts extremely to just water. That is why a non-aqueous electrolyte has to be used, plus a sealed container has to shield off the lithium to prevent unwanted reactions! So, moisture is not what you want anywhere near your batteries!
2. Panasonic has created the tiniest version of a Lithium-ion battery! It looks like a pin and only weighs 0.6 grams. They created it in 2014.
3. When the lithium battery runs out of power, it will happen fast and there will be no warning signs.
4. If you overcharge the battery just one single time, you will not be able to fix it.
5. Without lithium batteries, we would not have electric cars or even E-bikes.
6. Danger: If the lithium batteries overheat, they can easily catch fire.
7. Lithium is the lightest metal!
8. When lithium burns, it burns in a light red. Hopefully, you will never experience this, though!
9. Lithium has the lowest density out of every single metal.
10. Lithium belongs to the family of Alkali metals.

How many out of these ten fun facts did you already know?

How does the market for lithium batteries look today?

So we had looked back in history to figure out when and how lithium batteries were created, but how does the market look like these days? Actually, the industry has produced around 660 million lithium-ion cells – and that was just in the year 2012!

Of course, Tesla is using a lot of lithium batteries since they sell electric cars. Their goal in 2014 was to ship 40000 Model S cars that would make up 40 percent of all of the lithium batteries in 2014. Those are super high numbers!

But Tesla and other electric car manufacturers are not the only industries that are in need of a lot of lithium batteries. Since they are also being used for grid energy storage, toys and many other items, the demand for lithium batteries is only increasing with time.

Just to have some numbers: in 2010 the global lithium-ion battery production was at around 20 gigawatt-hours. Six years later, it was at 28 gigawatt-hours and in 2021 it is supposed to be between 200 and 600. Predictions for 2023 even say that there might be up to 1100 gigawatt-hours!

Are there any new plans for lithium batteries?

Since the usage of the lithium batteries is only increasing more and more over time, we can only predict that there will be new developments within the lithium battery industry coming. Stronger, longer-lasting batteries are probably on the horizon! There are even plans of making electrical planes realistic for the wide mass involving a lot of lithium batteries of course. Who would have thought in 1970 what a huge impact those batteries would actually have one day.

Are all lithium-ion batteries chargeable?

Not all of the available lithium-ion batteries can be recharged. There are some single-use ones. The single-use ones look very similar to the common alkaline batteries. These ones are often used in cameras, watches, and smoke detectors. The rechargeable ones are used in smartphones, cars, and laptops. Sometimes they are not easy to remove from the object because usually, to charge them, you do not need to remove them like in the case of a laptop.

How to recycle lithium batteries?

One important part of every single item we have in our house and in our lives is the question: how can I recycle that? You do not want to put the batteries in your common trash. There are certified battery electronics recyclers where you can bring your batteries to. Sometimes there are even grocery stores and drugstores that have those little containers. So you can just put your empty or broken batteries in there.

Are lithium batteries environmental-friendly?

Climate change is happening, and it is important to (hopefully) a lot of people to make environmentally friendly choices. But how environmentally friendly are lithium-ion batteries? No need to worry because they are not super toxic to the environment. In fact, lithium-ion batteries contain way less toxic materials compared to other batteries. They are even considered to be a non-hazardous waste. Luckily, there is no need to worry! As long as you also take care of recycling the batteries in a good way – alas, bring them to a certified recycling station, you are doing good! Obviously, it is better to buy the ones that are rechargeable, but the choice is up to you.

What other batteries are on the market?

We have mentioned lithium batteries a lot, and we have touched on alkaline batteries a bit. But are these two the only batteries there are on the market? Actually no. There are three kinds of primary batteries.

1. Lithium-ion batteries that are commonly used in a lot of different items – ranging from electric cars to smartphones to toys for kids. There is rechargeable and a single-use option for those batteries. They have been on the market since the 1970s and the inventors have won a Nobel Prize. Without these batteries, our lives would look a lot different! They are environmentally friendly – as long as you recycle them in the way they are supposed to be recycled – so you just bring them to one of the battery recycling bins that can often be found in supermarkets.
2. The second category is Alkaline batteries. Alkaline batteries are known to be extremely strong and can even last longer than a year! The alkaline batteries make up for 80% of all manufactured batteries in the USA. There are more than 10 billion individual alkaline batteries manufactured every single year, and we use them in our daily life. These are the batteries that we put into flashlights, radios, toys, and remote controls. They were invented by Thomas Edison and Waldemar Jungner between 1899 and 1901. There are single-use versions but also rechargeable ones.
3. The third category is Zinc carbon batteries. The zinc-carbon batteries are actually the oldest batteries out of the three primary types. They were developed in 1876 by Carl Gassner, who immediately put a patent on them. Unfortunately, these batteries are not great for the environment and often do not get recycled correctly. It is a dry cell primary battery that is often used in watches and remote controls. They are always single-use batteries. However, they definitely are a reliable source of power, especially for items that do not require a high level of power.

There are also secondary batteries. Those batteries are always rechargeable and have many different kinds. They are often used in portable devices, and some of them are also used in cars.