[ti:Three Won Nobel Prize for Developing Lithium-ion Batteries]
[by:www.21voa.com]
[00:00.00]更多听力请访问21VOA.COM
[00:00.04]Three men who made rechargeable lithium-ion batteries possible
[00:06.40]have won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
[00:13.20]One of the scientists is 97-year-old John Goodenough,
[00:18.90]who became the oldest winner of a Nobel prize.
[00:25.44]Goodenough is a professor at The University of Texas at Austin.
[00:31.80]He will share the award with Stanley Whittingham,
[00:35.73]a professor at the State University of New York at Binghamton, and Akira Yoshino of Japan.
[00:47.32]Yoshino is a professor with Meijo University and a fellow with the Asahi Kasei Corporation.
[00:58.04]Sara Snogerup Linse is a member of the Nobel committee for chemistry.
[01:06.44]She said the three men "developed lightweight batteries...useful in many applications
[01:15.24]– truly portable electronics: mobile phones, pacemakers, but also long-distance electric cars."
[01:27.68]The invention of the lithium-ion battery has had a deep influence on modern life.
[01:35.24]It has made listening to music, watching television
[01:40.45]and communicating on electric devices something that can be done almost anywhere.
[01:49.72]Whittingham started his research into lithium batteries in the 1970s
[01:57.39]at a time when world oil prices were high and energy availability a big concern.
[02:07.28]He developed a battery that combined lithium and titanium disulfide.
[02:14.25]It could produce two volts of power, but it was too explosive to be useful.
[02:24.20]But the British-American researcher established that lithium ions could be held
[02:31.45]by a special material to create a lightweight battery.
[02:37.96]Goodenough found that combining lithium with cobalt oxide
[02:43.80]could produce a more powerful battery, one that produced four volts.
[02:51.40]His research was an important step in the development of more powerful and safer batteries.
[03:01.20]Using Goodenough's design as a starting point, Yoshino developed
[03:07.04]the first commercially available lithium-ion battery in 1985.
[03:14.68]Yoshino's design used a carbon-based material to hold lithium ions.
[03:22.92]That made the battery lightweight and able to be recharged many times.
[03:31.24]The Nobel committee said that lithium-ion batteries "have laid the foundation of a wireless,
[03:40.18]fossil fuel-free society, and are of the greatest benefit to humankind."
[03:49.52]Yoshino spoke on Japanese television after hearing
[03:54.12]that he and the other winners were being recognized for helping the environment.
[04:01.64]"I am happy that (the) lithium-ion battery won the prize in that context," he said.
[04:10.88]Yoshino and Goodenough have developed a close relationship over the years.
[04:18.76]Yoshino said that Goodenough is like a father and he goes to Texas every year to see him.
[04:28.84]Gregory Offer is an expert in mechanical engineering at Imperial College London.
[04:37.80]He called the German-born Goodenough's work "one of the key enabling technologies of the 21st century."
[04:48.88]The three scientists will share the prize worth $918,000.
[04:56.96]They will receive their gold medals and be honored at the Nobel ceremony in Sweden on December 10.
[05:09.04]I'm Mario Ritter Jr. 更多听力请访问21VOA.COM