05 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2019 world Battery pioneers win Nobel Chemistry Prize Through their work, this year’s Chemistry Laureates have laid the foundation of a wireless, fossil fuel-free society

unstable to be used. needed two qualities. greener and safer chemistry and Goodenough built on Whit- “One thing is that you have to antibody drugs with fewer side tingham’s prototype, substitut- have a flexible brain. Flexibility. effects. ing a different metal compound The other is tenacity. You stay Arnold was just the fifth wom- and doubling the potential en- persistent and never give up.” an to clinch chemistry’s most ergy of the battery to four volts. Whittingham, 77, said he was prestigious honour since Marie This paved the way for far “overcome with gratitude at re- Curie in 1911. more powerful and durable bat- ceiving this award”. This year’s Nobel season teries in the future. His research “has helped ad- kicked off on Monday with the In 1985, Yoshino instead used vance how we store and use Medicine Prize, followed by the a carbon-based material that energy at a foundational lev- Physics Prize on Tuesday. stores lithium ions, finally ren- el, and it is my hope that this dering the battery commercially recognition will help to shine a Peace Prize on Friday viable. much-needed light on the (US) The Literature Prize will The culmination of the trio’s nation’s energy future,” he said follow on Thursday, with two research resulted in the most on the website of Binghamton laureates to be crowned after powerful, lightweight and re- University in New York where a sexual harassment scandal chargeable battery ever seen. he is a professor. forced the Swedish Academy to Yoshino, 71, works at the Asahi postpone the 2018 award, for the Good scientists ‘stay Kasei Corporation in Tokyo and first time in 70 years. persistent’ is a professor at Meijo University Names creating a buzz ahead “This is such a wonderful in Nagoya, Japan, while Goode- of this year’s literature prize in- thing, and I am very surprised,” nough holds the Cockrell Chair clude Canadian poet Anne Car- Yoshino told reporters in Tokyo in Engineering at the University son, Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa after winning the prize. of Texas at Austin. Thiong’o, Romanian poet and He said he had only gotten a The trio will receive the prize novelist Mircea Cartarescu and -- Britain’s Stanley Whitting- of power during the oil crisis of cell phone in recent years. from King Carl XVI Gustaf at a Polish writer and activist Olga ham, and Japan’s Akira Yoshi- the 1970s, Whittingham discov- “I have long felt a bit of re- formal ceremony in Stockholm Tokarczuk. no will share the nine million ered a way to harness the poten- jection towards mobile phones, on December 10, the anniversary On Friday the action moves Swedish kronor (about $914,000 tial energy in lithium, a metal so so I have never had one until of the 1896 death of scientist Al- to Norway where the Peace or 833,000 euros) prize equally, light it floats on water. recently. fred Nobel who created the priz- Prize is awarded, with book- the Royal Swedish Academy of He constructed a battery part- “I know the lithium ion battery es in his last will and testament. ies predicting a win for Swed- Sciences said. ly made of lithium that utilised really benefited mobile phones”, Last year, the honour went ish teen climate activist Greta “This lightweight, rechargea- the element’s natural tendency he said, adding he did “not real- to US scientists Frances Arnold Thunberg. ble and powerful battery is now to shed electrons, thereby trans- ly” feel that he had helped make and George Smith and British The Economics Prize will used in everything from mobile ferring energy. a product that benefited his life. researcher Gregory Winter for wrap up the Nobel prize season phones to laptops and electric However the battery was too For Yoshino, a good scientist developing enzymes used for on Monday, October 14. Stockholm vehicles... (and) can also store significant amounts of energy In the early 1970s, Akira Yoshino succeeded 2019 Chemistry hree researchers won the from solar and wind power, Stanley Whittingham, in eliminating pure Laureate John Nobel Chemistry Prize on making possible a fossil fuel-free awarded this year’s lithium from the battery, Goodenough doubled TWednesday for the devel- society,” the jury said. Chemistry Prize, used instead basing it wholly the lithium battery’s opment of lithium-ion batteries, “Lithium batteries have rev- lithium’s enormous on lithium ions, which potential, creating the paving the way for smartphones olutionised our lives since they drive to release its are safer than pure right conditions for a and a fossil fuel-free society. first entered the market in 1991,” KNOW WHAT outer electron when lithium. This made the vastly more powerful John Goodenough of the Unit- and were “of the greatest benefit he developed the first battery workable in and useful battery. ed States -- at 97 the oldest per- to humankind”. functional lithium battery. practice. son to be awarded a Nobel prize Seeking an alternative source

Modi to host Xi at summit US curbs China officials’ visas Agencies | New Delhi AFP | Washington rime Minister Narendra China retaliates Modi will welcome Chi- he United States said Tues- Reuters | Singapore nese President Xi Jin- Tday it would curb visas for Pping at an informal summit Chinese officials until Beijing hina is planning tighter this week, the Indian foreign ends its “repression” of Uighurs Cvisa restrictions for US na- ministry said yesterday. and other Muslims in the west- tionals with ties to anti-China The meeting in Chennai on ern region of Xinjiang, a day groups, people with knowledge Oct. 11-12 is aimed at enhancing Prime Minister Narendra Modi will after imposing commercial re- of the proposed curbs said. the rapport the leaders built welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping strictions. China’s Ministry of Public when they met in the Chinese (file) The one-two punch by Pres- Security has for months been city of Wuhan last year to help ident Donald Trump’s ad - working on rules to limit the stabilise ties after a standoff in ing as such is significant giv- ministration marks the most ability of anyone employed, or Donald Trump, the US President and Xi Jinping, Chinese President (file) another contested section of en these ominous signals at forceful attempt by a foreign sponsored, by US intelligence The Chinese rules would “The plan has been wide - their long border, far removed bilateral, regional and global power to address what some services and human rights mandate the drafting of a list ly discussed by senior police from Kashmir. levels,” he said. rights groups call a historic cri- groups to travel to China. of US military and CIA-linked officers over recent months, “The forthcoming Chennai Xi will also make a state visit sis in Xinjiang, and comes amid The proposed changes fol- institutions and rights groups, but made more likely to be Informal Summit will provide to Nepal at the end of his In- a range of feuds between the low the introduction by the and the addition of their em- implemented after the Hong an opportunity for the two dia visit, the first by a Chinese United States and China. United States of tighter rules ployees to a visa blacklist, ac- Kong protests and the US visa leaders to continue their dis- president in 22 years, the Ne- “China has forcibly detained for visas for Chinese scholars cording to the sources, who ban on Chinese officials,” the cussions on overarching issues pali foreign ministry said. over one million Muslims in in May. declined to be identified. source said. of bilateral, regional and global During Xi’s visit, Modi is a brutal, systematic campaign importance and to exchange expected to raise economic to erase religion and culture who would be affected. views on deepening India-Chi- issues, including India’s $53 in Xinjiang,” Secretary of State Beijing voiced its “strong na Closer Development Part- billion trade deficit with Chi- Mike Pompeo wrote on Twitter. dissatisfaction and reso - nership,” the Indian ministry na in 2018/19, and the small- “China must end its draconi- lute opposition” over the said in a statement. er presence of Indian com - an surveillance and repression, move and denied any human Srikanth Kondapalli, profes- panies in China compared release all those arbitrarily de- rights abuses in the restive sor of Chinese studies at New with that of other major tained and cease its coercion Xinjiang Communist Party chief Chen US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo region. “These accusations are Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Uni- economies. of Chinese Muslims abroad,” Quanguo The order will also affect nothing more than an excuse versity, said it was important China is expected to urge In- he said. In an accompanying officials involved in “detention their family members, including for the United States to delib- for the nuclear-armed neigh- dia to take an independent de- statement, Pompeo said that the or abuse” of Uighurs, Kazakhs children who may be seeking to erately interfere in China’s in- bours to stabilise relations as cision on telecom equipment State Department would restrict or members of other predom- study in the United States. ternal affairs,” foreign ministry both dealt with domestic and maker Huawei’s bid for India’s visas granted to government inantly Muslim ethnic groups The State Department did not spokesman Geng Shuang said regional issues. proposed 3G network and not and ruling Communist Party in Xinjiang. specify the names of officials in Beijing. “The second informal meet- be swayed by US pressure.