Esther Takeuchi, Ph.D.

Stony Brook University’s Institute for Electrochemically Stored Energy, through the Research Foundation of SUNY, has received a major grant from the U.S Department of Energy (DOE) to further develop battery technology that could potentially be used in the creation of more efficient electric vehicles (EVs). The research, led by Esther Takeuchi, PhD, is funded through the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicles Technology Office, and is part of a national research initiative to accelerate advancements in zero-emissions vehicles. The grant totals $2,285,813, effective October 1, 2021, and runs through December 2024.

“Our research is focused on new electrolytes to enable batteries to operate over wide temperatures, charge fast, and cycle effectively,” explains Takeuchi, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, the William and Jane Knapp Chair in Energy and the Environment and Principal Investigator. She also has a joint appointment with the DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, of which Stony Brook is part of the management team… Continue reading.

The European Patent Office (EPO) announced today that U.S. Scientist Esther Sans Takeuchi has won the 2018 European Inventor Award in the “Non-EPO countries” category, one of the five award categories. The award was presented to her by the European Patent Office (EPO) at a ceremony held today in Paris, Saint-Germain-en-Laye attended by some 600 guests from the areas of politics, business, intellectual property and science. Of the four U.S. scientists nominated for the award, Sans Takeuchi, a professor at Stony Brook University, is the only American to bring home Europe’s most prestigious prize of innovation this year.

With the award, Sans Takeuchi was honored for developing the compact batteries that power tiny, implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) – devices that detect and correct irregular, potentially fatal, heart rhythms. Her lithium silver vanadium oxide (“Li/SVO”) battery extended the power-source lifetime for ICDs to around five years, considerably longer than its predecessors, thus reducing the number of surgeries patients needed to undergo to replace them. Her invention led not only to an advance in battery chemistry, but also enabled the production and widespread adoption of ICDs and significantly improved patient well-being… Continue reading.

Electric vehicles, a modernized electrical grid and even smartphones would be little more than pipe dreams without the ability to store energy. More specifically, they rely on batteries, a centuries-old technology forced to mature ever more quickly to meet our growing demands for portable power.

Progress, at least when it comes to technology, poses myriad challenges for battery researchers. Their devices must work harder without generating more heat and do so without significantly driving up the prices of the technologies they power. About half of an electric vehicle’s retail price is the battery, for example, although this is expected to drop as more hit the road.

Painfully aware of this, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science created the Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) program in 2009 to encourage researchers to rethink how we generate, supply, transmit, store and use energy. In June the Energy Department awarded $100 million to 32 EFRCs, $10 million of which is funding complex battery system research at Stony Brook University, S.U.N.Y. led by materials scientist and chemical engineer Esther Takeuchi. A distinguished professor at Stony Brook with a long list of engineering accolades, Takeuchi is best known for developing an improved battery for powering implantable defibrillators… Continue reading.

President Barack Obama announced yesterday that Esther S. Takeuchi, Ph.D., Greatbatch Professor in Power Sources Research in the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor awarded in the U.S. for technological achievement.

Takeuchi, a UB faculty member since 2007, is the first UB professor to receive this honor. She will receive the medal from Obama at a White House ceremony to be held Oct. 7.

The National Medal of Technology and Innovation is administered for the White House by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It recognizes individuals or companies for outstanding contributions to the promotion of technology for the improvement of the economic, environmental or social well-being of the United States… Continue reading.