Yoshino Akira – Biography of Yoshino Akira

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Born on January 30, 1948, in Suita, Yoshino akira, is a Japanese chemist who won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the development of lithium-ion batteries. He shared the award with American physicist John B. Goodenough and British-American chemist M. Stanley Whittingham.

Yoshino He received a BA (1970) and a MA (1972) in petrochemistry from Kyoto University. He then went to work at the chemical company Asahi Chemical (now Asahi Kasei Corporation), of which he is now a member and general manager of the current Asahi Kasei Corporation in Japan and president of the Lithium Ion Battery Technology and Evaluation Center (LIBTEC). ).

He began research on rechargeable batteries in 1981 and in 1983 manufactured a prototype rechargeable battery with lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) (discovered by John B. Goodenough in 1979) as the cathode and polyacetylene as the anode. Because polyacetylene required a large battery volume to achieve high capacity and had instability problems, it switched to carbonaceous material for the anode and in 1985 manufactured and received the basic patent for the first LIB prototype. The new LIB was marketed by Sony in 1991 and in 1992 by A&T Battery (a joint venture of Asahi Kasei and Toshiba).

Developed the aluminum foil current collector, which formed a passivation layer to allow high cell voltage at low cost, and developed the functional separating membrane and the use of a positive temperature coefficient (PTC) device for increased safety. . He also envisioned LIB’s spiral wound structure to provide a large electrode surface area and allow high current discharge despite the low conductivity of the organic electrolyte.

In 2005 Yoshino received a doctorate in engineering from Osaka University. He became president of the Lithium-ion Battery Evaluation and Technology Center in 2010. He also held positions as a professor at Meijo University, visiting professor at Kyushu University, and honorary member of Asahi Kasei.

A member of the Japan Chemical Society, Yoshino has received numerous national and international awards, including the IEEE Medal for Environmental Safety Technologies in 2012 and the Global Energy Award in 2013.

In 2014 he won the Charles Stark Draper Award for designing the rechargeable lithium-ion battery that enables compact and lightweight mobile devices.