At 68, Jean-Marie Tarascon received this Thursday one of the most prestigious French scientific awards: the CNRS gold medal for the year 2022. This chemist specializing in batteries and "pioneer of electrochemical energy storage was rewarded for his research which "is at the heart of the scientific challenges and environmental issues of today and tomorrow", said CNRS CEO Antoine Petit, in a press release.

These must indeed "allow the storage of energy in compliance with the principles of eco-design, safety and recycling", he specified.

It all started in the United States, where he started his career in the 1980s.

In 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred in California, he conducted research for Bellcore, a Bell subsidiary on which the country's telephone companies depended.

Conventional telephone lines then need emergency electricity, supplied by lead-acid batteries, "supposed to last eight hours", says the chemist.

But “it happened that there was no more battery power after an hour.

We realized that there was little research on the subject of batteries”.

From lithium batteries to sodium-ion batteries

Jean-Marie Tarascon then took over as head of the energy storage group and converted to electrochemistry.

With his team, he explored the "still in its infancy" path of lithium batteries and developed the first extra-flat, more flexible and safer batteries: the plastic lithium-ion battery "which adapts more easily to electronic gadgets". and that we use today for example for mobile phones and many other objects, up to certain electric cars, explains the researcher.

Since his return to France in 1995, he notably headed the reactivity and solid chemistry laboratory in Amiens, and initiated the creation of the RS2E network.

It was under his leadership that this network developed the sodium-ion battery, useful for storing renewable energies.

“It has less autonomy than Lithium-ion but is more suitable for sustainable development, because it uses sodium salt, which is much more abundant and easy to extract than lithium.

Its asset is also its power,” argues Jean-Marie Tarascon.

His current research is directed towards "smarter" batteries, with sensors to "track their state of health and aging".

Because “tomorrow, everything around us will depend on batteries”.

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