Program

Dr. Akira Yoshino is Honorary Fellow of Asahi Kasei Corporation, Director of Global Zero Emission Research Center of National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), and President of the Lithium Ion Battery Technology and Evaluation Center (LIBTEC). He began research on rechargeable batteries in 1981, and in 1983 fabricated a prototype rechargeable battery using lithium cobalt oxide as cathode and polyacetylene as anode. He switched to carbonaceous material for the anode and in 1985 fabricated and received the basic patent for the first prototype of the LIB.

He 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 (PTC) device for additional safety. He also conceived of the LIB’s coil-wound structure to provide large electrode surface area and enable high current discharge despite the low conductivity of the organic electrolyte.

Dr. Yoshino has received numerous national and international awards, including the IEEE Medal for Environmental Safety Technologies in 2012, the Global Energy Prize in 2013, and the European Inventor Award and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019. He received his BS and MS from Kyoto University and his EngD from Osaka University.

Prof. Yanming Ma (http://mym.calypso.cn) received his Ph.D (2001) in Jilin University, China, and then spent several years at the Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences, National Research Council, Canada (2002-2004) and Laboratory of Crystallography, Zurich, ETH (2006-2008) for postdoctoral researches. He is currently Au-Chin Tang Professor and Dean of College of Physics in Jilin University. His research interests mainly focus on development of simulation methods (e.g., CALYPSO at http://www.calypso.cn) on crystal structure prediction and large-scale electronic structure calculations of materials, and the use of these developed methods to design novel materials (e.g., hydrogen-rich superconductors, superhard materials, and electrides) under high pressure conditions. His prediction of clathrate structured LaH10 superconductor creates the record high superconductivity at a near room temperature of 260 K. Prof. Ma has published >340 Peer-reviewed papers and given more than 100 invited talks in conferences and universities, and is the recipient of a highly cited researcher (2017-2019) from Clarivate Analytics. He received the Jamieson Award for High Pressure Science and Technology (2001) and the very first Walter Kohn Prize for Quantum-mechanical Materials and Molecular Modeling from International Center for Theoretical Physics (Trieste, 2016).