Naoaki Yabuuchi, Tokyo University of Science, Japan, has been awarded the Science Award Electrochemistry by Volkswagen and BASF. The award aims to promote outstanding scientific and engineering achievements and to provide an incentive for the development of high-performance energy stores. This is the first presentation of the award, which will be given annually and is endowed with prize money of €50,000. The prize money is intended as start-up funding for further research activities and is to be used for laboratory equipment, scientific events or to fund highly qualified employees.
Yabuuchi receives the award for the outstanding results of his research on different battery technologies such as new electrode materials for lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries.
Naoaki Yabuuchi gained his Ph.D. from Osaka City University, Japan, in 2006. He spent two years as a postdoctoral associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, before returning to Osaka City University to take up a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering. In 2009, he moved to Tokyo University of Science where he became Assistant Professor in 2010.
Yabuuchi’s research focuses on developing sodium-ion batteries – a desirable alternative to Li-ion batteries as sodium is more abundant globally than lithium. He has developed new electrode materials, such as NaNi0.5Mn0.5O2 and hard carbon electrodes, that make sodium-ion batteries a viable option. He also works to improve the safety of the Li-ion batteries, which is a large concern when designing large-scale Li-ion batteries for the transportation systems.
- Interfacial Charge Storage of Manganese Oxide Electrodes for Electrochemical Capacitors,
Shinichi Komaba, Naoaki Yabuuchi, Tomoya Tsuchikawa,
In Electrical Phenomena at Interfaces and Biointerfaces: Fundamentals and Applications in Nano-, Bio-, and Environmental Sciences,
Hiroyuki Ohshima (Ed.),
John Wiley & Sons, New York, USA, 2012.
ISBN: 978-0-470-16935-3
DOI: 10.1002/9781118135440.ch29 - Electrochemical Na Insertion and Solid Electrolyte Interphase for Hard-Carbon Electrodes and Application to Na-Ion Batteries,
Shinichi Komaba, Wataru Murata, Toru Ishikawa, Naoaki Yabuuchi, Tomoaki Ozeki, Tetsuri Nakayama, Atsushi Ogata, Kazuma Gotoh, Kazuya Fujiwara,
Adv. Funct. Mat. 2011, 21(20), 3859–3867.
DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201100854 - Graphite-Silicon-Polyacrylate Negative Electrodes in Ionic Liquid Electrolyte for Safer Rechargeable Li-Ion Batteries,
Naoaki Yabuuchi, Keiji Shimomura, Yukako Shimbe, Tomoaki Ozeki, Jin-Young Son, Hiroshi Oji, Yasushi Katayama, Takashi Miura, Shinichi Komaba,
Adv. Energy Mat. 2011, 1(5), 759–765.
DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201100236
