John B. Goodenough

John Bannister Goodenough ( born July 25, 1922 in Jena) is an American physicist and materials scientist. He is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He has made important contributions to the development of advanced lithium -ion batteries. In particular, he was involved in the discovery of the most important cathode materials.

Life

Goodenough was born to American parents in Jena and educated at the universities of Yale and Chicago. 1951-1952 he worked as a development engineer at the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he headed the Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Oxford in England. There he discovered the suitability of lithium cobalt oxide as the material for the positive terminal of rechargeable batteries. Since 1986 he works as a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. There he discovered along with a doctoral lithium iron phosphate as a possible cathode material. Also at the discovery of a further suitable for accumulators class of materials, the manganese spinel, Goodenough was involved.

Work and honors

Goodenough has published more than 500 scientific papers, 85 book chapters and review articles, and five books, including two groundbreaking. For his achievements, he has received many honors, including the 1989 von Hippel Award, the 2001 Japan Prize for environmentally conscious materials, the Enrico Fermi Award in 2009, and the election as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 2010. For 2011 was him the National Medal of Science awarded.