Everyone is familiar with batteries. Nowadays, batteries have become a necessity of life, and people cannot live without them in their daily lives.
For example, your mobile phone, which accompanies you the longest 24 hours a day, needs a battery; your work laptop needs a battery; even the portable speakers used by square dancers, the radios worn by elderly men on their waists, and the electric scooters many people use for commuting all need batteries. Even buses, taxis, ride-hailing vehicles, and private cars largely rely on batteries for power, and a large portion of these rechargeable batteries are lithium batteries.
Although lithium batteries have been commercially available for nearly 30 years, their widespread application in various fields and into everyday life has only occurred in the last decade or so, starting with their use in devices such as laptops and cameras. It is precisely because of their lightweight, portability, and easy charging capabilities that lithium batteries have enriched our daily lives.
So how were lithium batteries invented? It's somewhat related to the oil crisis of the 1970s. In 1960, an organization called OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) was established. Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and other countries met in Baghdad to form this organization, primarily to coordinate oil prices and policies and protect their respective interests. Coupled with the outbreak of the Fourth Arab-Israeli War in the 1970s, various factors led to persistently high oil prices, increasing several times over. This prompted scientists in Europe and America to begin developing lithium batteries to prepare for a potential future oil crisis.
In 1976, a British scientist named Stanley Wittingham worked in the battery laboratory of ExxonMobil (then not yet ExxonMobil) and began developing a prototype of the lithium battery. However, this was purely theoretical, mainly because lithium is a highly reactive metal, prone to explosion, and flammable in water. The unstable chemical properties of early lithium batteries made them dangerous when exposed to heat or pressure, preventing their commercial application. Nevertheless, the principle behind the lithium battery proposed by Stanley Wittingham became one of the cornerstones of its future commercialization.
In 1980, Goodnough, a chemistry professor at Oxford University, developed lithium cobalt oxide, a cathode material for lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, after four years of research based on Stanley Wittingham's fundamental principles. This material could also be used as a cathode material in lithium-ion batteries. This solved the problem of potential explosions, allowing for both stationary and portable use, and enabling smaller sizes with larger capacities. Two years later, in 1982, Goodnough developed another, cheaper, and more stable material in the laboratory: lithium manganese oxide. Lithium manganese oxide batteries are still very common today.
In 1985, Japanese scientist Akira Yoshino, building on Goodenough's research, developed the first commercially viable lithium-ion battery component, officially turning laboratory lithium-ion batteries into commercially usable batteries.
However, it was the Japanese company Sony that filed the patent for lithium-ion batteries. When lithium-ion batteries were first developed, no one in Britain was willing to take on the project. Because lithium-ion metals are highly reactive and prone to explosions, British scientists and chemical companies were, to an exaggeration, terrified of lithium. Oxford University was also unwilling to apply for a patent. But Sony took on this notoriously difficult task and combined it with its own developed anode material to create a new lithium-ion battery.
In 1992, Sony commercialized the research and development foundation laid by Akira Yoshino and John Goodenough extensively for use in home video cameras. At that time, lithium batteries were not widely accepted by society, and this application did not bring Sony substantial commercial profits. In fact, the department that developed lithium battery products became a money-losing department.
It wasn't until 1994 or 1995 that Dell acquired Sony's lithium-ion battery technology and applied it to its laptops. Dell laptops made a fortune thanks to the long battery life of lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries gradually gained acceptance around that time, being used in various products and becoming a part of people's daily lives.
