Bonus episode: The electric innovations that brought lithium-ion batteries online

C&EN's award-winning podcast Inflection Point leans on our 100-year archive to trace headline topics in science today back to their disparate and surprising roots. In each episode, we explore three lesser-known moments in science history that ultimately led us to current-day breakthroughs. With help from expert C&EN reporters, this show examines how discoveries from our past have shaped our present and will change our future. In this episode, hosts David Anderson and Gina Vitale charge up the time machine to relive three historical moments that led to the lithium-ion battery. They also bring in C&EN reporter Prachi Patel to discuss the shortcomings of lithium-ion batteries, whether we're facing a lithium shortage, and new battery chemistry still on the horizon.

You can listen to Bonus episode: The electric innovations that brought lithium-ion batteries online online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Bonus episode: The electric innovations that brought lithium-ion batteries online is an episode from Stereo Chemistry by C&EN.

This episode is 39:19 long.

This episode was published on Dec 24, 2025.

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