Page 11 - PERIODIC Magazine Issue 5

As pure as the

driven snow

Lithium-Ion Batteries: a personal perspective

Phil Wiseman

Research at Oxford Chemistry led to the development of the Li-ion battery,
ubiquitous today as the power source for mobile phones, laptops, electric
vehicles and many other devices. This ground-breaking discovery was made
at the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory and is commemorated by a blue plaque
outside the lab. Dr Phil Wiseman, one of the original researchers, tells his story
for Periodic.

That solid state chemistry became active in the department
Prelude was primarily due to one man: Professor J Stuart Anderson.
Peter Dickens’ lab did look JS was a walking encyclopaedia on the subject. In his seminal
different. As you hurried through textbook with Emeléus, the tungsten bronzes stand centre-
the archway to ICL lectures stage as grossly non-stoichiometric compounds, Na WO ,
3
x
in the late 1960s, glancing to the host WO chains templated according to the rotundity of
3
the left through the window of the guest, their shiny chameleon-coats reflecting a varying
G3, you could see the copper electron exchange to the host. But from his unpopular
windings of the backs of the lectures, we learnt little. In any spare moment, he suggested
Variac transformers that controlled the furnaces; it was a we looked down the body diagonal of a cube.
high temperature world where thermodynamics ruled.
More familiar was the teaching lab above, first encountered In 1969, starting a Part II was a rite of passage. It was much
the previous year in the Practical Entrance Exam, where more common to work for your college tutor and the first time
the arch-braced beams seemed to hold far more secrets you could call each other by Christian names. For storage
than the copper ammine complex we analysed. Later, Peter purposes, I brought along some of my grandfather’s cedar
would give a lecture illustrated with a box of samples he was cigar boxes. One of these was immediately commandeered by
working on called tungsten bronzes: their mysterious look Peter to re-house his bronze samples; it travelled the world.
spurred curiosity. Entering G3, the only obvious nod to safety was a World
War II gas mask hanging behind the door. To the right, Stan
First synthesised in 1824, for 100 years these metallic Whittingham’s microbalance was embedded in the original
misfits were condemned to the dogma of the day: front wall – Stan had recently left for a Post Doc in America
pNa O.qWO .WO . Mind your ps and qs - small integers only! and is a key figure in the lithium battery story. During his
3
2
2
Fortunately, Nature had ruled its own diffraction gratings. Part II year, he was the first person to synthesise oxide bronzes
Scribbling on the tables at the Café Lutz, Munich in 1913, von at Oxford.
Laue’s team speculated how the new X-rays might interact
with crystals. Despite Bragg junior’s Peter had inherited his tutor’s (Jack Linnett) style of graduate
corrections, a sodium chloride supervision where ‘distinguished
molecule stretching to infinity visitors were introduced to his research
created a divide among chemists students, no matter how junior, as if
that still partially exists. At Oxford, they were established collaborators’;
Marcus ‘Tiny’ Powell pioneered and he certainly enjoyed analysing what
X-ray crystallography. A fantastic made someone tick. His research ‘family
linguist, he illuminated host/ tree’ included Robert Bunsen who was
guest inclusion structures and, adamant there were two distinct classes
in a case of science imitating art, of scientist: ‘first, those who work at
we synthesised his nickel cyanide enlarging the boundaries of knowledge,
benzene clathrate within the oak- and, secondly, those who apply that
framed cavity of the teaching lab. knowledge to useful ends’. Bunsen
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Periodic
The Magazine of the Department of Chemistry