The battery was invented by John B. Goodenough, inventor of the lithium cobalt oxide and lithium iron phosphate electrode materials used in the lithium-ion battery (Li-ion), and Maria H. Braga, an associate professor at the University of Porto[5] and a senior research fellow at Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas.
[8] In September 2016 Iowa State University was granted U.S. $1.6 million to develop new lithium-ion-conducting glassy solid electrolytes.
"[10] The initial publication in December 2016 was met with considerable skepticism by other researchers in battery technology, with several noting that it is unclear how a battery voltage is obtained given that pure metallic lithium or sodium exists on both electrodes, which should not produce a difference in electrochemical potential, and therefore give no cell voltage.
"[3] A formal comment was published by Steingart and Venkat Viswanathan from Carnegie Mellon University in Energy & Environmental Science.
[12] Goodenough's response has drawn further skepticism from Daniel Steingart and also Matthew Lacey of Uppsala University, who point out that this underpotential deposition effect is only known for extremely thin layers (monolayers) of materials.
[13][14] Lacey also notes that the original publication does not mention a limit to the thickness of the lithium plated on the cathode, but instead states the opposite: that the capacity of the cell is "determined by the amount of alkali metal used as the anode".
The authors also state they tested the stability of the alkali metal/electrolyte interface over 1,200 charge cycles with low cell resistance;[1] the specification for Li-ion batteries is usually less than a thousand.