How did the lithium battery, which is indispensable in daily life, come from?

When it comes to batteries, everyone is familiar with them. In today's era, batteries have become a necessity of life. People can not live without batteries.

For example, the mobile phone that accompanies you for the longest time 24 hours a day needs batteries, the notebook for work needs batteries, and even the mobile phone speakers for square dancing old ladies, radios for walking on the waist and other appliances, including many people's battery cars for work and travel, need batteries. Even buses, taxis, online car hailing, private cars, etc. are driven by a large part of batteries, and these batteries need to be recharged account for a large part.

Although the commercial use of lithium batteries has been nearly 30 years, from the beginning of notebook computers, cameras and other devices to the present, lithium batteries have really been widely used in different fields, and it is only about ten years since they entered everyone's life. It is precisely because the lithium battery has such powerful functions as light weight, easy to carry, easy to charge and so on, which makes our daily life more abundant.

Therefore, the invention of lithium battery was related to the oil crisis in the 1970s. In 1960, the world established an organization called OPEC. Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia met in Baghdad and formed the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Its main purpose is to unify and coordinate the oil price and oil policy to safeguard their respective interests. Coupled with the outbreak of the Fourth Middle East War in the 1970s, high oil prices per barrel rose several times for various reasons. At that time, scientists in Europe and the United States began to develop lithium batteries in response to the possible future oil crisis.

In 1976, Stanley Wadingham, a British scientist working in the battery laboratory of Exxon (not ExxonMobil at that time), started to develop the prototype of lithium battery. However, this is only theoretical, mainly because lithium is a reactive metal, which is easy to explode and burn when encountering water. At that time, the chemical properties of lithium batteries were unstable and dangerous under high temperature and pressure, which made them unable to be used for commercial purposes. But Stanley Weddingham's lithium battery idea became one of the cornerstones of its commercialization.

By 1980, under the basic principle of Stanley Wittingham, Goodinaff, a chemistry teacher at Oxford University, had developed lithium cobalt oxide cathode material after four years of research, which can be used as cathode material. This material solves the problem of explosion, which can be fixed or moved, and can be made smaller and larger. Two years later, in 1982, Goodinav developed another cheaper and more stable material in his laboratory. It is called lithium manganate, and it is still very common.

In 1985, Japanese scientist akira Yoshino developed the first commercial lithium battery on the basis of Goodenav's research, officially turning the laboratory lithium battery into a commercial battery.

But the patented lithium battery is Sony Corporation of Japan, and nobody wants it in the UK. As lithium battery is a kind of energetic metal, which is prone to explosion accidents, British scientists and British chemical companies can say that their views on lithium are exaggerated, and Oxford University is unwilling to apply for a patent for it. But Sony took over the hot potato and created a new lithium battery with its own cathode material.

In 1992, Sony commercialized most of the research and development achievements of Yoshino and Goodinav's home cameras. At that time, lithium batteries had not been widely accepted by society. This application did not bring Sony considerable commercial profits, but the development of lithium battery products has become a loss making department.

It was not until 1994 and 1995 that Dell Computer acquired Sony's lithium battery technology and applied it to notebook computers, which also made a lot of money because of the long battery life of lithium batteries. At that time, lithium batteries began to be gradually accepted by people, applied to different products, and entered the daily life of ordinary people.