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“I said in the banquet speech for the Nobel prize:
John [Goodenough] made his inventions in Oxford Co ntributing to the fight
and I made mine in the US, so in a sense we switched
nationalities to do that.” against climate change

Following his DPhil, Whittingham moved to Stanford Divya Popat reports on some of the ways in which chemistry research can contribute to mitigating the effects of
for a postdoctoral position. “I moved in 1968, it was climate change as we strive towards a cleaner and greener future.
cold and miserable in England. I caught a 707 direct to
San Francisco … 70 degrees, sunshine. And that was Dr Emily Flashman’s main focus is sunlight and convert H O into H or CO into CO.
2
2
2
one of the reasons I went! I think all DPhils, if they John Goodenough – co-recipient of the Nobel Prize alongside on how cells sense and respond to Enzymes are so efficient that the performance of these
wanted a good academic or industrial job, had to go Whittingham – and colleagues outside the Inorganic Chemistry environmental stresses, particularly solar fuel-forming systems is limited by the abilities of
to the US in those days for a postdoc.” Subsequently Laboratory in 1982. Goodenough is second from the left in the in plants. Since the onset of climate the semiconducting systems to capture sunlight and
front row.
he took a research position at Exxon’s new corporate change, plants are increasingly subject transfer electrons, allowing focus to shift, strange as it
labs, studying “anything energy related that wasn’t totally electric. “Most of us believe that large cities like to flooding resulting in a lack of seems, away from catalysis itself.
petroleum or chemicals”. He remembers it as a great London, New York, and San Francisco will ban internal oxygen; plants are able to detect how much oxygen is
time to be in industry, and contrasts it with the combustion engines within the next 10 or 15 years.” available using oxygen-sensing enzymes called plant Professor Peter
situation today. “Exxon, Bell Labs, DuPont, General There are stark differences in attitudes to climate cysteine oxidases. Flashman works on understanding Edwards, Dr
Electric, IBM: they all had these very fundamental change across the US. In Whittingham’s view the how these enzymes trigger a stabilisation mechanism Tiancun Xiao,
research labs – more basic research than academics Democrat-led states, in particular California, are leading and adaptation response in plants, so that they can and Dr Zhaoxi
could ever do – but they’re all gone.” In his opinion the way in the automotive industry. “You’ve got these engineer these enzymes and genetically alter the Zhang founded
this has been driven by a focus on short term returns, big areas pushing for a greener environment, and car enzymatic behaviour in plants to help them survive a spin out company called Oxford Sustainable Fuels in
where inventions may still be made in Britain or the US manufacturers won’t make two different sets of cars longer when they become submerged in water, making 2018. The company aims to reduce the environmental
but then “the engineering is shipped off to Asia. They’re so they have to follow the California standards. That’s them capable of withstanding the inevitable extreme impact of plastics by utilising the low energy process,
willing to invest ten years, or whatever it takes, to turn what Trump is trying to change, but I don’t think auto weather conditions. Crop yield loss due to flooding is a pyrolysis. Pyrolysis thermally decomposes plastics as well
an idea into a product”. manufacturers will change because they want to make threat to food security so this type of engineering could as other waste materials such as tyres and biomass, and
through Oxford Sustainable Fuels’ unique purification and
He and Goodenough now form part of the Battery500 cars they can sell around the world.” help make crops more tolerant of climate extremes and stabilisation technology, converts the waste into high
Consortium, a collaboration that aims to increase the He remains optimistic about a global response to enhance submergence tolerance in agriculture. quality transportation fuels and chemicals. In essence,
energy density in lithium battery cells to 500 watt hours climate change, explaining that Nobel laureates as a Professor Fraser Armstrong’s this process creates valuable products from materials
per kilogram. “That’s about double what it is today.” group are certainly in favour of action. “Even Trump will research includes the exploitation that would have otherwise been disposed of in landfill
Another of his projects is more fundamental, aiming to have to listen when his mansion in Florida gets flooded, of nature’s catalysts, enzymes, for sites and incineration or end up polluting our oceans.
“understand all the chemical reactions that can occur in it’s only about two feet above water level now.” energy production with the aim of Professor Kylie Vincent’s research
battery electrodes”. The area for which he has recently contributing to the development of explores the fact that hydrogen holds
been honoured remains ripe for exploration, almost 50 One current debate is whether the impacts of future renewable energy technologies. great promise as a clean renewable
years after he began working in the field. COVID-19 related lockdowns on the way we work – His group has pioneered a technique called ‘protein
more working from home, less commuting – will have fuel for the future with the only waste
So, what would his move be today, if he were a DPhil a long-lasting impact on our attitudes to travel and film electrochemistry’ and they are using it to study product being water. However it is not
student just finishing up his studies? “Certainly in Britain pollution. Possibly in the long-term, says Whittingham, how enzymes function so efficiently. Evolution has easy and cheap to release the enormous
it will be very stressed in research with Brexit and things but “in the short term it’s going to make things worse. ensured that electrical/solar and chemical energy are amount of energy stored in hydrogen in a controlled way
like that. I don’t know what the British government People are going to be loath to carpool, they’re not interconverted with maximum rate and minimal wastage, for use as a fuel. Current methods involve using platinum
is going to do, whether they will invest in research to really going to want to go on full buses or full trains, so enzymes set the ultimate standards for future which is very expensive and a limited resource.
get out of the doldrums or whether they’ll worry more but instead they’ll opt to drive themselves”. He does development. Vincent’s work is inspired by enzymes found in bacteria
about the virus and stop investing in everything. I’m at concede that in Oxford, perhaps, more people might A recent invention, the ‘electrochemical leaf’, further which are able to efficiently use hydrogen as a fuel.
the end of my career, it’s not going to affect me, but I just ride bikes. mimics nature by channelling electrical energy into She has used infra-red spectroscopy to look inside
think it’s much more worrisome for new folks getting enzyme cascades (production lines) that are trapped and the enzyme to understand how they do this, revealing
into the field.” In light of his Nobel Prize, Whittingham was recently crowded within the nanopores of a conducting metal oxide
made an Honorary Fellow of New College. “What are details of how the hydrogen molecule is split at a metal
Alongside his scientific projects, Whittingham also sits the perks?” he enquired, on hearing the news. “Well, electrode material. Such simple nanoconfinement, now site containing nickel and iron. Once the process is fully
on a task force for the governor of New York State you can park your car inside the quad” came the reply. so easily energized, produces a massive increase in rates of understood, simpler catalysts can be built containing
that aims to elucidate the factors limiting the uptake Perhaps, if Whittingham’s predictions on the future of biocatalysis with exquisite control of complex chemistry. these cheaper metals to model the chemistry that
of electric vehicles. He cites range as one of the internal combustion are to be believed, when he next Armstrong has also demonstrated the attachment of happens in the enzymes, taking us a step closer to the
major limiting factors, but sees no reason why fleets pulls up into the quad his car will need to be powered by enzymes to semiconductor nanoparticles to harness reality of affordable vehicles running on hydrogen as a
of delivery vans and buses in large cities could not be one of his own lithium-ion batteries. clean renewable fuel.

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