Nobel Prize History
The Nobel Prize is the most prestigious award in the scientific world. It was created according to Mr. Alfred Nobel’s will to give a prize “to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind” in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. A sixth prize would be later on created for economic sciences by the Swedish central bank.
The decision of who to attribute the prize to belongs to multiple Swedish academic institutions.
Legacy Concerns
The decision to create the Nobel Prize came to Alfred Nobel after he read his own obituary, following a mistake by a French newspaper that misunderstood the news of his brother’s death. Titled “The Merchant of Death Is Dead”, the French article hammered Nobel for his invention of smokeless explosives, of which dynamite was the most famous one.
His inventions were very influential in shaping modern warfare, and Nobel purchased a massive iron and steel mill to turn it into a major armaments manufacturer. As he was first a chemist, engineer, and inventor, Nobel realized that he did not want his legacy to be one of a man remembered to have made a fortune over war and the death of others.
Nobel Prize
These days, Nobel’s Fortune is stored in a fund invested to generate income to finance the Nobel Foundation and the gold-plated green gold medal, diploma, and monetary award of 11 million SEK (around $1M) attributed to the winners.
Source: Britannica
Often, the Nobel Prize money is divided between several winners, especially in scientific fields where it is common for 2 or 3 leading figures to contribute together or in parallel to a groundbreaking discovery.
Over the years, the Nobel Prize became THE scientific prize, trying to strike a balance between theoretical and very practical discoveries. It has rewarded achievements that built the foundations of the modern world like radioactivity, antibiotics, X-rays, or PCR, as well as fundamental science like the power source of the sun, the electron charge, atomic structure, or superfluidity.
A Battery To Power Them All
Today, electrification seems like an unstoppable trend, taking over our energy systems and replacing fossil fuels, from EVs to heat pumps. None of this would have been possible without the emergence of batteries radically more powerful than the previous designs based on metal and acid.
Batteries, as a general concept, work by storing electricity and releasing it back. While some batteries are single-use, the more useful batteries are rechargeable. For a very long time, the lead-acid battery, invented in the mid-1800s, was the dominant form of rechargeable battery thanks to its low costs and robustness.
Source: Electrical 4 U
At their simplest, lead-acid batteries function by transferring sulfur ions from the acid to the lead atoms when charging and reverting this reaction when discharging.
Source: PV Education
This design stayed the dominant format of battery but was limited by several problems:
- Heavy weight
- Corrosive materials.
- Relatively short lifespan with only a few hundred to a thousand cycle battery life.
- Self-discharge over time.
- Limited energy storage/energy density.
All these limiting factors made the lead-acid battery a good option for low-power applications like operating the sparks and radio of a petrol car. But anything more demanding, from electronics to replacing fossil fuel, would not work with this type of battery.
This would change thanks to the combined work of 3 different researchers, John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham, and Akira Yoshino. Together, they would win the Nobel Prize in 2019 in Chemistry for their contribution to creating the lithium-ion battery.
Source: Nobel Prize
Today, lithium-ion batteries have moved from powering computers, smartphones, and backup power banks to EVs, power grids, and maybe soon even airplanes.
Lithium Unique Electrical Properties
Lithium was first discovered in 1817 by Swedish chemists. It is the lightest solid element, with the atomic number 3 (only 3 protons in its nucleus).
Source: Medium
Lithium atoms’ small size means that they have only one electron on their outer charge, and when this electron moves to another atom, this gives them an enormous electric potential change per atom.
While this extreme reactivity is ideal for use in batteries, it brings with it certain dangers. Due to the element’s high reactive, there is the potential for pure lithium metal to self-ignite when entering into contact with water or air. This is somewhat similar to metallic sodium or magnesium.
Most batteries function around the basic concept of a negative anode and a positive cathode, linked together by a liquid electrolyte.
Source: Nobel Prize
Lithium’s extreme reactivity meant that the electrolyte could not be water-based. In the 1960s, several such electrolytes were designed using organic (carbon-based) molecules instead, in order to find the right mix of inertness, melting point, redox stability, solubility of lithium ions and salts, ion/electron transfer rates, viscosity, etc.
Source: Nobel Prize
The initial design of lithium-ion batteries used metallic lithium as an anode and carbonate compounds as electrolytes. But finding the right cathode material was more of a challenge.
Big Oil Creates Lithium Batteries
As surprising as it may sound, the genesis of the modern lithium-ion battery, which would ultimately endanger the internal combustion engine car, was developed at the “Big Oil” Exxon Research and Engineering Company.
In the 1970s, the idea of “peak oil”, or the exhaustion of oil reserves, was a threat taken very seriously by oil companies. Looking to ensure the continuous presence of the company in the energy sector, Exxon hired some of the top scientists in the field. It gave them generous research budgets combined with the rare freedom of pursuing independently what idea they thought was the most promising.
Among them was Stanley Whittingham, a Stanford University researcher who specialized in “intercalation.” Intercalation is the phenomenon where atom-sized holes in a material can bind to ions.
Intercalation would make for the ideal material to build a cathode for lithium-ion batteries, holding lithium ions in the gaps.
This, however, required a lot of research, as the cathode also needed to fit a long list of specifications:
- Not dissolving in the electrolyte.
- No intercalation of the electrolyte.
- Intercalation needs to be reversible.
- Minimal structural changes when charging and discharging.
- Can operate at ambient temperature and pressure.
Whittingham would ultimately settle for titanium disulfide (TiS2), after considering tantalum disulfide, but settling with titanium due to tantalum’s heavy weight.
Source: Nobel Prize
To boost performance, they found a method of using TiS2 powder mixed with Teflon and attached to a steel support, surrounded by a polypropylene film and lithium metal.
The Dendrite Issue
One problem still plagued the potential lithium-ion battery. Over many cycles of charge-discharge, a tree-like structure called dendrite formed out of lithium.
Source: Nobel Prize
When breaking through the insulant separating the 2 segments of the battery, dendrites would create a shortcut. This issue stopped the development of a commercial lithium-ion battery in its tracks.
When they reached the other electrode, the battery short-circuited which could lead to an explosion.
The fire brigade had to put out a number of fires and finally threatened to make the laboratory pay for the special chemicals used to extinguish lithium fires.
Dendrite would be made more manageable by adding aluminum to the lithium anode, creating the first commercial lithium-ion battery, used in watches in 1976.
In parallel, oil prices that had skyrocketed in the stagflation of the 1970s went back down. New oil deposits were also discovered, reducing the fear of peak oil. It also reduced Exxon’s revenues and profits, forcing the company to cut back on fundamental research and to license out the newly invented battery to other companies.
Better Cathode Material
Where Stanley Whittingham created a viable cathode, the next recipient of the Nobel Prize, John Goodenough, would improve its electric potential, boosting the battery’s performance.
Goodenough, a physicist and mathematician, had previously contributed to the invention of random access memory (RAM) at MIT. He then moved to Oxford University to enter research on energy systems, and batteries in particular.
Studying the newly invented lithium-ion batteries, he realized that metal oxide could work even better than Whittingham’s metal sulfide. After a systematic search, he found that the lithium-cobalt oxide design had twice as much electric potential as the previous design, at 4V, and published his discovery in 1980.
Source: Nobel Prize
This cobalt-based design would stay the dominant feature of lithium-ion batteries until the last decade, were cobalt-free alternative chemistries for lithium batteries started to appear. A still ongoing process, as we discussed in our article “Designing a Better Battery – Out with Cobalt and In with…TAQ?”.
A New Home For Lithium Research
In Western countries, the dramatic decline in oil prices in the 1980s reduced the demand for alternative energy solutions. However, in Japan, portable small consumer electronics became a booming industry. It needed an increasing power supply that was also long-lasting, lightweight, and small enough to fit into Walkmans, cameras, computers, cordless phones, etc.
Akira Yoshino from the Asahi Kasei Corporation realized early that batteries were the key missing link and that the industry would need them.
Lithium-ion batteries were a good fit in terms of energy density, and they now had a good cathode with Goodenough’s cobalt-based design. However, the issue with the lithium-metal anode and its dangerous dendrites persisted.
Yoshino tested batteries containing pure lithium and saw that tests like dropping a heavy weight on the battery could create a powerful explosion. This was too dangerous for larger batteries to pass consumer protection laws, and would anyway be a public relations disaster waiting to happen.
Removing Lithium From The Anode
Graphite, or pure carbon, like the tip of a pencil, was long known as a potential replacement for metallic lithium anode, thanks to its low electric potential relative to Li+/Li. The problem was that the graphite would be damaged and flake into the organic electrolyte.
Akira Yoshino’s key insight that would win him the Nobel Prize was to use petroleum coke instead of graphite. Coke is a by-product of the petroleum industry, and some quality grades of the product proved to be stable in the required conditions to form a lithium-ion battery.
Yoshino also measured that coke anode with the right degrees of crystallinity could accommodate and release large amounts of lithium ions. This design was a lot safer, opening the way for the commercialization of larger lithium-ion batteries.
Yoshino then went on to build such a battery with both his newly developed Coke anode and Goodenough’s cobalt oxide cathode.
It would see a commercial release in 1991 by Sony and Asahi Kasei, 11 years after Goodenough’s discovery and 15 years after Whittingham’s first commercialized lithium-ion battery.
Source: Nobel Prize
Lithium-Ion Legacy And Continued Relevance
Yoshino’s coke/cobalt oxide lithium-ion batteries quickly made their way into all the modern world electronic devices. Together, they co-evolved with the progress in computing and electronics to successively create laptops, mp3 players, smartphones, hand-held consoles, and tablets that are omnipresent in our lives.
Lithium-ion would undergo a new revolution with the emergence of EVs. They were initially boosted by Tesla and Chinese vehicle manufacturers like BYD (a battery company before becoming the world’s largest electric automaker, see more about BYD at the end of the article).
As only one EV consumes the battery volume of hundreds of smartphones or computers, this change in the market has led to an explosion in the demand for lithium-ion batteries, dwarfing the pre-2015 market.
Source: Statista
The electrification revolution is now in full swing, even if legacy automakers and smaller startups are struggling to make the transition, for now, outmatched by aggressive Chinese automakers with a head start in EV technology.
Lithium-ion batteries are even making way in stabilizing the electric grid, which increasingly relies on intermittent renewables. This is however a category where lithium-ion might not be the best chemistry available, as we discussed in “The Future Of Energy Storage – Utility-Scale Batteries Tech”.
Moving Forward Battery Technology
One issue with the explosive demand for lithium-ion batteries from EVs is that it has also caused an explosion in the demand for the metals in it.
This has caused extreme volatility in lithium prices, with the lithium mining industry going through rapid cycles of under and over-production.
Source: Carbon Credits
Other metals, like cobalt, might be even more problematic, with their mass production linked to child & slave labor and other human rights abuses.
For these reasons, already in 1996, John Goodenough identified lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) as a cobalt-free alternative (“LiFePO4: A Novel Cathode Material for Rechargeable Batteries”).
LFP proved a more sustainable and cheaper alternative to classical lithium-ion batteries, although with a lower energy density. By 2022, LFP batteries represented 31% of the EV battery market. They are also commonly used in home energy storage.
Other alternatives are coming to the market, notably sodium-ion (dispensing entirely from lithium and using instead cheaper salt) and solid-state batteries.
Source: Nature
You can read an overview of mobility-oriented battery technology in “The Future of Mobility – Battery Tech”.
This includes glass batteries, the last battery concept on which Dr. Goodenough worked before his passing in 2023 with astonishing claims like twice the energy density of conventional lithium-ion batteries, and the possibility to be recharged 23,000 times, as well as a charging time of mere minutes.
Investing Into Battery Tech
Lithium-ion batteries have already changed the world several times, from allowing people to carry advanced electronics everywhere to powering cars with electricity only. They might still do so again, or other types of batteries, by allowing for a 100% renewable power grid or allowing for airplane electrification when reaching a high enough energy density.
You can invest in battery-related companies through many brokers, and you can find here, on securities.io, our recommendations for the best brokers in the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, as well as many other countries.
If you are not interested in picking specific battery companies, you can also look into biotech ETFs like Amplify Lithium & Battery Technology ETF (BATT), Global X’s Lithium & Battery Tech ETF (LIT), or the WisdomTree Battery Solutions UCITS ETF, which will provide a more diversified exposure to capitalize on the growing battery industry.
Battery Companies
1. CATL (300750.SZ)
CATL is the global leader in battery manufacturing, producing more than half of the global battery volume.
The company is present at every step of the battery manufacturing supply chain and is a leader in battery technology.
This is true for lithium-ion batteries, where the company has been a long-established leader for a long time.
CATL has also announced impressive progress on multiple other battery types :
Source: CATL
Most recently, it was announced that it had essentially solved the issue of dendrites forming with lithium metal as an anode, thanks to a 3D structure blocking their formation.
The company is getting active in the utility-scale battery market with the announcement of its TENER system performance. It is “the world’s first mass-producible energy storage system with zero degradation in the first five years of use in Beijing, China.”
Immense Energy in a Compact Space: 20-foot Container with 6.25 MWh Capacity.
Powered by cutting-edge technologies and extreme manufacturing capabilities, CATL has resolved the challenges caused by highly active lithium metals in zero-degradation batteries, which effectively helps prevent thermal runaway caused by oxidation reactions.
CATL has also invested 3.25B in battery recycling capacities in China. CATL has notably achieved a remarkable recovery rate of 99.6% for nickel, cobalt, manganese, and 91% for lithium.
Thanks to its scale, focus, and R&D achievements, CATL is likely to be at the forefront of battery innovation, manufacturing, and recycling. This makes it a key partner for EV manufacturers, including Tesla, NIO, Ford, Stellantis, etc.
2. BYD (BYDDY)
A long-time challenger of Tesla in the EV market, BYD has become a serious competitor not only for Tesla but for virtually all automakers.
The company evolved from its origin as a supplier of lithium-ion phone batteries to selling almost as many EVs as Tesla in China (the world’s largest EV market) and being the best-selling EV in Thailand, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Israel, and Brazil.
BYD is a large part of why China suddenly became the world’s largest car exporter in 2023, surpassing Japan. The company’s aggressive overseas expansion is also carried by new factories, like in Hungary.
And with the release of $10,000-$12,000 cars like the Seagul, using sodium batteries, a whole new market might open for BYD EVs.
Source: By User3204 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
Still a battery manufacturer at its core, BYD is a serious challenger to CATL in the LFP (lithium iron phosphate) battery market, with a 41.1% market share in China (compared to CATL’s 33.9%).
The “flood” of cheap EVs produced by BYD into the European and American markets is likely to be met with some level of protectionism (even above the recently imposed tariffs), which could hinder BYD’s growth.
But at the same time, cheap Chinese EVs are already a great success in the rest of the world, which does not have incumbents much in the way of domestic automakers to protect, including the entirety of South America, Russia, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
This represents several billion potential customers for BYD, living in countries eager to strike a geopolitical balance and stay on good terms with both the West and China, so it is unlikely to create too strong protectionist barriers.
And even in the EU or the USA, BYD might stay competitive, thanks to the much higher prices of local EV manufacturers compared to prices in China, as well as localization of the production out of China for these markets, like, for example, in Eastern Europe, Mexico, or Turkey.
