M. Stanley Whittingham
British-American chemist and Nobel laureate who discovered intercalation electrodes and invented the first rechargeable lithium metal battery.
Sir Michael Stanley Whittingham (born 22 December 1941) is a British-American chemist and a leading figure in the development of lithium-ion batteries. He is a distinguished professor of chemistry and materials science at Binghamton University, where he also directs the Institute for Materials Research and the Materials Science and Engineering program, as well as the U.S. Department of Energy’s Northeastern Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES). In 2019, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Akira Yoshino and John B. Goodenough.
Whittingham is credited with discovering intercalation electrodes and describing intercalation reactions in rechargeable batteries during the 1970s. He holds patents on using intercalation chemistry to create high power-density, highly reversible lithium-ion batteries. He also invented the first rechargeable lithium metal battery, patented in 1977 and licensed to Exxon for use in small devices and electric vehicles. That battery used a lithium-aluminum anode and a titanium disulfide cathode. His foundational work has earned him the title of founding father of the lithium-ion battery.
Born in the Carlton suburb of Nottingham, England, Whittingham attended Stamford School from 1951 to 1960, then studied chemistry at New College, Oxford, earning his BA in 1964, MA in 1967, and DPhil in 1968. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford, he spent 16 years at Exxon Research & Engineering and four years at Schlumberger before joining Binghamton University as a professor. He served as vice provost for research from 1994 to 2000 and as vice-chair of the Research Foundation of the State University of New York for six years. In 2017, he became chief scientific officer of NAATBatt International.
Whittingham co-chaired a 2007 Department of Energy study on chemical energy storage and directs NECCES, an Energy Frontier Research Center. In 2014, NECCES received $12.8 million from the DOE to accelerate breakthroughs for the 21st-century economy, and an additional $3 million in 2018 to continue research on cheaper, more environmentally friendly, higher-capacity energy-storage materials.
Whittingham and his colleague Fred Gamble conceived the intercalation electrode. Exxon manufactured his lithium-ion battery in the 1970s, using a titanium disulfide cathode and lithium-aluminum anode. The battery offered high energy density, and the movement of lithium ions into the titanium disulfide was reversible, making it rechargeable. Titanium disulfide also allowed fast lithium-ion diffusion. Exxon commercialized the battery but ended the project due to safety concerns. Whittingham continued publishing his work in electrochemistry and solid-state physics journals. He left Exxon in 1984 to work with Gamble at Schlumberger, then became a professor at Binghamton in 1988.
Whittingham describes intercalation batteries as “like putting jam in a sandwich”—lithium ions enter and leave a crystal structure without changing it, which allows long cycling. To overcome the capacity limit of one lithium-ion per transition metal redox center, his research has advanced to multi-electron intercalation reactions, which can store more energy by intercalating multiple lithium ions. He has successfully developed materials such as LiVOPO₄/VOPO₄, where multivalent vanadium enables multi-electron reactions, offering promise for higher energy density in batteries.
Whittingham received the Young Author Award from The Electrochemical Society in 1971, the Battery Research Award in 2003, and was elected a Fellow of the society in 2004. In 2010, Greentech Media named him one of the Top 40 innovators in green technology. He received the IBA Yeager Award for Lifetime Contribution to Lithium Battery Materials Research in 2012 and was elected a Fellow of the Materials Research Society in 2013. In 2015, Thomson Reuters listed him as a Clarivate Citation Laureate for the Nobel Prize. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2018.
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- Michael Stanley Whittingham
- Born
- 22 December 1941
- Birthplace
- Nottingham, England
- Field
- Chemist
- Workplaces
- Binghamton University
- Education
- New College, Oxford (BA, MA, DPhil)
- Thesis year
- 1968
- Doctoral advisor
- Peter Dickens
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Whittingham is a key figure in the history of lithium-ion batteries. He discovered intercalation electrodes and thoroughly described intercalation reactions in rechargeable batteries in the 1970s. He holds the patents on the concept of using intercalation chemistry in high power-density, highly reversible lithium-ion batteries. He also invented the first rechargeable lithium metal battery (LMB), patented in 1977 and assigned to Exxon for commercialization in small devices and electric vehicles. Whittingham's rechargeable lithium metal battery is based on a LiAl anode and an intercalation-type TiS2 cathode. His work on lithium batteries laid the foundation for others' developments, so he is called the founding father of lithium-ion batteries.
Reader's Guide
Whittingham was born in the Carlton suburb of Nottingham, England, on 22 December 1941. He was educated at Stamford School from 1951 to 1960, before going up to New College, Oxford to read chemistry. At the University of Oxford, he took his BA (1964), MA (1967), and DPhil (1968). After completing his graduate studies, Whittingham became a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. He worked 16 years for Exxon Research & Engineering Company and four years working for Schlumberger prior to becoming a professor at Binghamton University. From 1994 to 2000, he served as the university's vice provost for research. He also served as vice-chair of the Research Foundation of the State University of New York for six years. He is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering at Binghamton University. Whittingham was named Chief Scientific Officer of NAATBatt International in 2017. He co-chaired the DOE study of Chemical Energy Storage in 2007, and is a director of the Northeastern Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES). In 2014, NECCES was awarded $12.8 million, from the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2018, NECCES was granted another $3 million by the Department of Energy. Whittingham and his boss, Fred Gamble, PhD, conceived the intercalation electrode. Exxon manufactured Whittingham's lithium-ion battery in the 1970s, based on a titanium disulfide cathode and a lithium-aluminum anode. He left Exxon in 1984, following Gamble to Schlumberger where he worked as a manager. In 1988, he became Professor at the Chemistry Department, Binghamton University, U.S. Whittingham's research has advanced to multi-electron intercalation reactions. A few multi-electron intercalation materials have been successfully developed by Whittingham, like LiVOPO4/VOPO4.
A December 1941 Arrival in England
M. Stanley Whittingham entered the world on December 22, 1941, in England, where he was born and identified as English-born throughout his professional life. That specific date placed his arrival at the very close of a year that would be remembered as one of the most consequential in the history of science and technology. The infant's first year of life would overlap with the aftermath of events that reshaped the material world: the synthesis of plutonium, the first working programmable computer, and the first clinical use of penicillin all occurred within the same twelve months. Whittingham would grow up to become a solid-state chemist, a discipline deeply rooted in the study of materials at the atomic and molecular level. His English origins anchored his early identity, and the scientific ferment of his birth year—marked by breakthroughs in chemistry, physics, medicine, and engineering—set the intellectual climate into which a young boy in postwar Britain would eventually be drawn. His life's work, culminating in the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, would echo the material-science ambitions that defined that extraordinary 1941.
Nobel Recognition in Chemistry, 2019
The culmination of M. Stanley Whittingham's scientific career came in 2019, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This distinction placed him among the most celebrated chemists in modern history and confirmed that his work in solid-state chemistry had achieved a level of impact that the Nobel committee deemed of the highest significance. As an English-born scientist, Whittingham carried the imprint of his British origins throughout a career that would span several decades and multiple continents, yet it was the Nobel Prize that crystallized his contributions into a single, globally recognized achievement. What is clear from the record is that Whittingham's identity as a solid-state chemist was inseparable from the prize he received. The Nobel in Chemistry, one of the most selective honours in the natural sciences, validated a lifetime of work in understanding and manipulating the properties of solid materials, and it permanently linked his name to the highest echelon of chemical discovery.
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