Nordic Life Science 1
N JUNE 2019, chemist and engineer Akira Yoshino w
as one of the recipients of the European Inventor Award. He won the category “Non-EPO countries” for inventing and refining the lithium-ion battery technology. A few months later, he was announced as one of the three Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, for the same pioneering work. Akira Yoshino was born in 1948, in Suita in the north of Osaka, Japan. He studied petrochemistry at Kyoto University. He became interested in chemistry in fourth grade, after his teacher had introduced him to “The Chemical History of a Candle” – a collection of lectures by 19th century chemist Michael Faraday. After completing his Master’s degree in 1972 he joined the research division of Asahi Kasei, where he still continues to serve as an advisor and Honorary Fellow. Yoshino also holds a PhD in engineering from Osaka University and is the head of Japan’s Lithium Ion Battery Technology and Evaluation Centre, and also teaches at Meijo University. Yoshino’s Nobel achievement was the development of the first modern lithium-ion battery in 1983. He introduced a safer anode material and a heat sensitive membrane. Yoshino understood that using a polyacetylene anode and a lithium cobalt oxide cathode could make his invention more stable than other rechargeable batteries in development at the time. “Previously, rechargeable batteries used water as the solvent for the electrolyte. However, water is electrolyzed into hydrogen and oxygen when the voltage is over 1.5 volts. For that reason, getting more than 1.5 volts was practically impossible. So I used organic solvent instead of water, and using carbon as negative electrode I was able to get over 4 volts. With lithium cobalt oxide as positive electrode material, I created the world’s first LIB,” he explains on Asahi Kasei’s website. Receiving the European Inventor Award was no surprise for those who have followed Yoshino’s career. Already in 1983 he filed a patent application for the lithium battery and he is today an inventor of 56 Japanese and six European patents, according to the EPO. “His technology has transformed our society, in part because the licenses granted to other companies for the use of his patented inventions helped to decisively speed up its commercialization,” says António Campinos, President of the EPO. Up until 2016 Asahi Kasei held 17% of the total global market share of lithium-ion battery separators. The battery market value was estimated to EUR 26.5 billion and by 2025 the market is estimated to reach over EUR 80 billion, states Groth & Co. “In Yoshino’s portfolio it is foremost two patent families that stand out as particularly important – one from 1986 and one from 1991. The first one is quoted in close to 500 subsequent patent applications, which is an indication that the patent has become incredibly significant for the technology development within the field,” says Dag Stålhandske, Patent Consultant at Groth & Co. hroughout his career Yoshino has continued to improve the technology, boosting battery performance and refining safety features. “My inventions have led to many patents for my company,” says Yoshino. “The patents are not used to keep people out, rather we license our patents to encourage many other manufacturers to use our technology. Some of my latest innovations are for batteries for electric vehicles – and these, I hope, will change the world again.” NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG 95