Goodenough doubles the voltage with a cobalt-oxide cathode

At the University of Oxford, John B. Goodenough and colleagues replaced titanium disulfide with lithium cobalt oxide. The oxide’s structure operated at a much higher potential, lifting cell voltage to around four volts and substantially increasing the energy available from a battery of the same size. Just as importantly, the cathode already contained lithium, opening the way to pair it with an anode that did not begin as dangerous metallic lithium. This materials breakthrough supplied one half of the architecture used in the first commercial lithium-ion cells and many later portable-electronics batteries. Cobalt, however, is costly and carries supply-chain, environmental and thermal-safety concerns, which later encouraged alternative cathode chemistries.