John Goodenough, the world's oldest Nobel prize winner, who was a pioneer in the development of lithium-ion batteries, has died at the age of 100, BBC reported. Mr. Goodenough died Sunday at an assisted living facility in Austin, according to the University of Texas, where he worked as an engineering professor and served as a faculty member for 37 years. No cause of death was given.
He was 97 when he received the 2019 Nobel Prize for Chemistry along with Britain's Stanley Whittingham and Japan's Akira Yoshino, for their respective research into lithium-ion batteries.
Notably, lithium-ion batteries power millions of electric vehicles around the globe.
"This rechargeable battery laid the foundation of wireless electronics such as mobile phones and laptops. It also makes a fossil fuel-free world possible, as it is used for everything from powering electric cars to storing energy from renewable sources," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced while conferring the prestigious award.
“Live to 97 (years old) and you can do anything,” Mr Goodenough said after he was awarded the Nobel prize, according to a 2019 release from UT Austin.
In recent years, Mr. Goodenough and his university team had also been exploring new directions for energy storage, including a “glass” battery with solid-state electrolyte and lithium or sodium metal electrodes, news agency Reuters reported.
He also was an early developer of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathodes as an alternative to nickel- and cobalt-based cathodes.
According to The Nobel Prize website, Mr. Goodenough was born to American parents in Jena, Germany. After studying mathematics at Yale University, he served during the Second World War as a meteorologist in the US Army. He then studied at the University of Chicago, receiving a doctorate in physics there in 1952.
He subsequently worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Oxford University in Great Britain. Since 1986 he has been a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
''John's legacy as a brilliant scientist is immeasurable — his discoveries improved the lives of billions of people around the world. He was a leader at the cutting edge of scientific research throughout the many decades of his career, and he never ceased searching for innovative energy-storage solutions,” UT Austin President Jay Hartzell said in a statement Monday.
According to a CNN report, he had also been awarded the National Medal of Science, the Enrico Fermi Award, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal, among several other prestigious accolades.
The Nobel laureate and his wife Irene were married for 70 years until her death in 2016, as per BBC.
