My Way to Lithium-Ion Batteries Yoshio Nishi I have been engaged in research and development (R&D) on novel materials for electronic appliances for 40 years since I joined Sony Corporation in 1966. I started my scientific career in Sony as a researcher of zinc-air batteries. After 8 years in R&D on electrochemistry, my research field was shifted against my will to el- troacoustic materials, specifically diaphragm materials for electroacoustic tra- ducers including loudspeakers, headphones, and microphones. My R&D work also extended to cabinet materials for speaker systems. This about-face was uncomfo- able for me at first, but it forced me to devote myself to the investigation of various classes of materials unfamiliar to me, covering pulp and paper, metals (i. e.
, Ti, Al, Be), ceramics (B4C, TiN, BN, SiC), carbonaceous materials (carbon fibers, intr- sic carbon, artificial diamond), reinforcing fibers for FRP (carbon fibers, aromatic polyamide fibers, glass fibers, SiC fibers, superdrawn polyethylene fibers), organic polymers (polyamides, polyethylene, polypropylene, polymethylpentene, poly- ides, polysulfones, polyetherimides, polyethersulfones, PET), boards (plywood, particle board), resin composites (bulk molding compounds, resin concretes, arti- cial marble), and so on. I also was engaged in development of piezoelectric lo- speakers employing poly(vinylidene difluoride) (PVdF). The remarkably successful output from my R&D activities in those days were organic polymer whiskers and bacterial cellulose. The former was the first organic whisker in the world disc- ered by M. Iguchi,1 which is composed of polyoxymethylene (POM).