Lithium-Ion Battery Co-Inventor Energizes Interest in 'Better Battery'

AUSTIN, Texas -- You'll find lithium-ion batteries in virtually every electronic device around: cell phones, laptops, cameras, hoverboards and e-cigarettes.

John Goodenough, Ph.D., helped create the technology in 1979 while at the University of Oxford. However, he admits the design is flawed.

"It starts with the fact that it uses an organic liquid electrolyte, which is flammable," Goodenough said.

The other problem is one every user knows too well.

"Its cycle life is bad," he said.

Goodenough, who, at almost 95, leads a research team at the University of Texas at Austin, wants battery developers to create a more sustainable solution. He's dismayed by a push the last decade to integrate lithium-ion batteries into electronics, so the entire device is rendered useless once the battery reaches its end of life.

"We have to get away from that," Goodenough said. "We have to wean modern society from its dependence on fossil fuels, and we have to stop exploiting planet Earth of its resources."

Helena Braga, a senior research fellow at UT Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering, approached the professor with a solid state battery that Goodenough said uses glass instead of lithium. That way, it doesn't generate heat like lithium-ion.

"We demonstrated it was dry, we demonstrated that we can plate, we made symmetrical cells," he said. "We have been cycling it for almost 5,000 cycles with almost no capacity fade, which means we get a long cycle life."

That's a crucial part to helping electronics last a long time--especially electric cars. Goodenough said this will revolutionize the electric car industry, but he's still waiting to hear from Tesla.

"They haven't come to me, and I haven't gone to them," he said. "It is up to them to come to me. If they have committed to a lithium-ion battery, I wish them luck, but I don't think they will be very successful with it."

Goodenough is reaching out to battery manufacturers to encourage them to test his design and consider licensing. If those manufacturers are pleased with the results, he said the next generation of batteries could be in consumers' hands by 2020.