Does revolutionary Goodenough Li-ion battery defy laws of physics?
Researchers have questioned John Goodenough's claim that his team developed a battery 10 times as energy dense as normal lithium-ion batteries using an electrode of pure lithium or sodium. The development appears to abandon the laws of thermodynamics. To produce energy, differing materials must produce differing eletro-chemical reactions in the anode and cathode, producing voltage. With pure lithium or sodium, the voltage should be zero. “He’s technically made a perpetual motion machine,” said Venkat Viswanathan, professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Dan Steingart, a Princeton professor, suggested oxygen leaked into the cell, making the cell not a solid-state lithium-ion battery, but instead a lithium-air battery. 

Alternative strategy for a safe rechargeable battery

M. H. Braga, N. S. Grundish, A. J. Murchison and J. B. Goodenough, Energy Environ. Sci., 2017, 10, 331 DOI: 10.1039/C6EE02888H

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