Akira Yoshino

Akira Yoshino is a Japanese chemist who developed a commercially viable rechargeable lithium-ion battery and shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

M. Stanley Whittingham: An English-American chemist whose early rechargeable lithium battery research used titanium disulfide as a cathode. His lithium-metal battery research supplied a starting point for Yoshino’s safer design.
Lithium-ion battery: A rechargeable battery that stores and releases energy by moving lithium ions between two electrodes. Yoshino’s central achievement was a commercially viable version of this battery family.
Lithium batteries: Electrochemical batteries that use lithium in their electrodes or electrolyte to store energy. Yoshino’s work followed earlier lithium battery experiments and made rechargeable use practical.
Portable electronics: Electronic devices designed to be carried and operated without a fixed power connection. Compact lithium-ion batteries helped power the growth of mobile consumer devices.
John B. Goodenough: An American physicist and materials scientist who developed the cobalt-oxide cathode used in early high-voltage lithium-ion batteries. His cathode research provided a key material for the battery Yoshino made practical.
Lithium cobalt oxide: A layered lithium-containing transition-metal oxide used as a high-energy cathode material in rechargeable batteries. This cathode material enabled the high voltage in Yoshino’s battery design.
Exxon: An American energy company whose research laboratory supported early work on rechargeable lithium batteries in the 1970s. Whittingham’s early battery development took place in Exxon research, forming part of Yoshino’s scientific lineage.
Electric vehicle: A vehicle propelled partly or entirely by electric motors using stored electrical energy. Lithium-ion batteries became a major energy-storage technology for modern electric vehicles.
Koichi Mizushima: A Japanese materials scientist who co-discovered lithium cobalt oxide as a rechargeable battery cathode with John B. Goodenough. His contribution to the cathode material preceded Yoshino’s commercial battery design.
Petroleum coke: A carbon-rich solid produced during petroleum refining, used as an anode material in early lithium-ion batteries. Yoshino used carbonaceous petroleum coke to host lithium ions instead of plating lithium metal.

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History of the batteryRelated: His design helped move lithium-ion batteries from laboratory research toward commercialization.