6/22/2023 0 Comments Who produces lithium ion batteries![]() ![]() How did you learn about the importance of miniaturization?Īs we were not battery specialists at Asahi Kasei, in-house discussions about what industry needed led nowhere. I managed to get hold of a sample of the material and, sure enough, when we used it to make the anode, we created a lightweight and compact battery. However, the answer came from within Asahi Kasei another research team had developed a new carbon material with a distinctive crystalline structure, known as Vapor-phase Grown Carbon Fiber (VGCF), that made it a good substitute for polyacetylene. And in the future, they will play a central role in building a sustainable society. Lithium-ion batteries have made today’s mobile IT society a reality. But no suitable carbon material existed, which was very disappointing. ![]() The idea was to use a carbon material (it has a relative density of about 2.2 and is made of the same conjugated double bonds as polyacetylene). We began looking for a higher density material with polyacetylene-like properties. The problem was the small relative density of polyacetylene, which made for a lightweight but bulky battery that was too big to be practical. This put the whole venture into question because miniaturization was a priority for the electronics industry. The prototype was one-third lighter than a standard nickel-cadmium battery, which was good, but we only achieved a slight weight reduction and were unable to reduce the size of the battery. How did your research evolve following this breakthrough?Īll went well for a while. John Goodenough, one of my fellow laureates, had identified lithium cobalt oxide, the first cathode material to contain lithium ions, in 1980. Interestingly, research into lithium-ion batteries has been supported by eight Nobel laureates, which gives an indication of how challenging their development has been.īy 1983, I had come up with a new type of rechargeable battery using a combination of polyacetylene for the anode and lithium cobalt oxide for the cathode. My basic research on lithium-ion batteries began in earnest in 1981, the year Professor Fukui won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. My research on polyacetylene suggested that it could be used as an anode material (because lithium-like cations move in and out of it), so I started experimenting with it and it worked. Many researchers were working on this, but existing anode materials were unstable and raised serious safety concerns – a new anode material was required. But at the time, Japan’s electronics industry was looking for a new lightweight and compact rechargeable battery to power the mobile devices they were developing. Hideki Shirakawa, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.Īt first, I explored practical applications for polyacetylene. Kenichi Fukui, Japan’s first Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, and discovered by Dr. At the time, there was great interest in polyacetylene, a fascinating electro-conductive polymer that had been predicted by Dr. The projects I worked on initially didn’t work out, so I was looking for a new research focus. In the early 1970s, I joined the Exploratory Research Team at Asahi Kasei Corporation to explore new general-purpose materials. And how did you come to work on lithium-ion batteries? I then went on to study quantum organic chemistry at the University of Kyoto. I hadn’t been interested in chemistry until then. And that stirred up a lot of questions for me. And when I was in elementary school one of my teachers suggested that I read The Chemical History of a Candle by Michael Faraday. I have always been interested in the natural world. Yoshino talks about the challenges he overcame in developing lithium-ion batteries and the role that strategic use of patents rights has played in building a booming global market for them. He has secured over 60 patents on lithium-ion battery technology during his career. Yoshino invented and patented the world’s first lithium-ion battery and has since worked continuously to improve the technology. These lightweight rechargeable power packs have fueled the boom in mobile electronics and are already yielding environmental dividends by enabling the development of long-range electric vehicles and efficient storage of energy from renewable sources.ĭr. John Goodenough were awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their seminal work in advancing the development of lithium-ion batteries, the miniature energy systems that we depend on to power our mobile devices. (above) developed the first commercially viable 2019 Nobel laureate for chemistry, Akira Yoshino, ![]()
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