John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino jointly awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was jointly awarded to John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino "for the development of lithium-ion batteries," The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Wednesday in Stockholm.

Click here to watch the live coverage of the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony. 

'They created a rechargeable world'

From mobile phones and laptops to electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries are now necessities in our daily lives.

The lightweight, rechargeable and powerful battery can store significant amounts of energy from solar and wind power, making possible a fossil fuel-free society, according to the academy.

The process of the revolutionary work was explained by the academy in a press release on Wednesday. 

In the early 1970s, Whittingham used lithium's enormous drive to release its outer electron when he developed the first functional lithium battery.

Goodenough doubled the lithium battery's potential, creating the right conditions for a vastly more powerful and useful battery.

Akira Yoshino succeeded in eliminating pure lithium from the battery, instead basing it wholly on lithium ions, which are safer than pure lithium. His work made the battery workable in practice.

In 1985, Yoshino created the world's first commercially viable lithium-ion battery.

"We can see an enormous, dramatic effect on society because of this fantastic battery," said Olof Ramström, member of the Nobel Committee.

Get to know the laureates

Born 1922 in Jena, Germany, Goodenough received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1952. He currently serves as the Virginia H. Cockrell Centennial Chair of Engineering in the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Goodenough, who is 97 years old, is the oldest ever laureate to receive a Nobel Prize. 

Whittingham was born in 1941 in the UK. He received his Ph.D. from Oxford University in 1968. Whittingham is currently a distinguished professor at the Binghamton University. 

Yoshino was born in 1948 in Suita, Japan. He received his Ph.D. in 2005 from Osaka University. He is an Honorary Fellow at Asahi Kasei Corporation and a professor at Meijo University. Yoshino is the 27th Japanese to receive the Nobel Prize. 

The three laureates will share nine million Swedish krona (about 0.9 million U.S. dollars) prize money. 

(Top image: A screen displays the portraits of the laureates of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (L-R) John Goodenough, Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino during a press conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 9, 2019. /VCG Photo)