Akira Yoshino

Akira Yoshino is a Japanese chemist who in 1985 developed the design that made the lithium-ion battery commercially viable, combining a carbon-based anode with a lithium cobalt oxide cathode built on John B. Goodenoughs earlier cathode research, producing a rechargeable battery that was both safe and stable enough for mass production. His design was commercialized by Sony in 1991 and became the technology that now powers most portable electronics, and increasingly electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage. Yoshino shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with John B. Goodenough and M. Stanley Whittingham for the development of the lithium-ion battery. His work is widely credited with making the modern era of portable and mobile energy storage possible.