Akira Yoshino is a fellow of Asahi Kasei Corporation and a professor at Meijo University in Nagoya.
13 Facts About Akira Yoshino
2.
Akira Yoshino created the first safe, production-viable lithium-ion battery which became used widely in cellular phones and notebook computers.
3.
Akira Yoshino graduated from Kitano High School in Osaka City.
4.
Akira Yoshino spent his entire non-academic career at Asahi Kasei Corporation.
5.
Immediately after graduating with his master's degree in 1972, Akira Yoshino began working at Asahi Kasei.
6.
Akira Yoshino began work in the Kawasaki Laboratory in 1982 and was promoted to manager of product development for ion batteries in 1992.
7.
In 1981 Akira Yoshino started doing research on rechargeable batteries using polyacetylene.
8.
Polyacetylene had low real density which meant high capacity required large battery volume, and had problems with instability, so Akira Yoshino switched to carbonaceous material as anode and in 1985 fabricated the first prototype of the LIB and received the basic patent.
9.
Akira Yoshino described challenges and history of the invention process in a book chapter from 2014.
10.
Akira Yoshino discovered that carbonaceous material with a certain crystalline structure was suitable as anode material, and this is the anode material that was used in the first generation of commercial LIBs.
11.
Akira Yoshino developed the aluminum foil current collector which formed a passivation layer to enable high cell voltage at low cost, and developed the functional separator membrane and the use of a positive temperature coefficient device for additional safety.
12.
The LIB's coil-wound structure was conceived by Akira Yoshino to provide large electrode surface area and enable high current discharge despite the low conductivity of the organic electrolyte.
13.
In 1986 Akira Yoshino commissioned the manufacture of a batch of LIB prototypes.