The key point of the MEA development is how to promote the reaction on the surface of the platinum catalyst in the catalyst layer. To increase the reaction area that can contribute to the catalyst reduction, the supply channels of oxygen and hydrogen to the reactive sites, the conductive channels of the proton and the exit paths for the generated water become important. The development history and the future design of both the reduction of Pt in the catalyst layer and the improvement of the reliability for PEFCs were described chiefly.

ELIIY Power Co., Ltd. (ELP) has commercialized a high safe large format lithium ion cell using LiFePO₄ as the cathode material. The cell shows discharge capacity of 50Ah at room temperature, and has passed safety standard test “S-Mark” certification by TÜV Rheinland Japan. The cellʼs safety and electrochemical performance is suitable for the large format energy storage system, e.g., HEMS, BEMS.

Expand in application of lithium ion battery for the renewable energy accumulation and the vehicle applications such as motorcar and electric train, scaling up of the battery capacities are widely studied. Well known for the high thermal stability and long life, and the use of iron for the raw material, which is inexhaustible metal resource, LiFePO₄ is the most suitable cathode material for the large size lithium ion batteries. Sumitomo Osaka Cement had started production and sales of LiFePO₄ as secondary battery cathode material since April, 2010. In this paper, the general information of the hydrothermal process used for the synthesis of LiFePO₄ and the following powder properties of the carbon coated LiFePO₄ and its electrode characteristics will be given.

The second battery has been recently used for a various industrial fields such as mobile device and hybridpower car. Particularly, the lithium ion battery is developing rapidly because of high performance in the charge-discharge characteristic and the energy density. Most of the electrode materials of the lithium ion battery are made from powders, and it is well known that the particle properties have a great influence on the final products in the respect of electromotive force, output power density, recycling characteristic, etc.

Here we introduce an overview of the latest powder processing machines, which are utilized actively in the manufacturing process of lithium ion battery.

Two of the most important problems in ceramics are the large variation of properties and the shape deformation of products in processing. Packing structures of particles were examined to clarify their origins in various intermediate products appearing in production process of ceramics. As a model system, processing of alumina ceramics though compaction forming was selected, and the structures of granules, green compacts and ceramics were examined with unique optical methods developed by the present author. A variety of interesting structure was discovered, directly showing their clear relationship to various problems caused by them. A very interesting defect size distribution was found in an alumina ceramic for the first time. It successfully explained the strength variation of the ceramics quantitatively for the first time in the history of fracture mechanics. The importance of particle orientation on deformation during sintering was emphasized.

Ferroelectric and piezoelectric materials have attracted a great deal of attention from scientific and technological points of view. In this paper, it is described that intergranular elastic strain accommodation in addition to lattice defects and domain walls plays an important role in the piezoelectric properties of PZT [ Pb(Zr, Ti)O₃] ceramics. In addition, recent progresses and problems for Bi-based piezoelectric ceramics are briefly mentioned.

Nanocomposite thin films with various functions can be obtained by using functional nanoparticles. For example, in the optical materials used in flat panel displays etc, various functions such as hard coating, antireflection, antistatic and refractive index control can be given when designing with nanoparticles. This paper introduces functional nanoparticles made based on our original Nanoparticle Preparation Technology as well as give some actual examples of functionalnanocomposite using this technology.

Many researchers were reported that the mechanical properties of plastics were improved by filling with inorganic particles of the particle size from 100nm to 1μm in a polymer matrix. These studies are utilized for various plastic car parts. Nanocomposites that inorganic various nano-particles homogeneously dispersed to a polymer matrix exhibit hybrid properties synergistically derived from the two components. Moreover, the nanocomposites exhibit unexpected high-performance properties by filling with a little fillers of nm order, and attract attention as lightweight alternative materials of metals or glasses.

Summaries of nano-filler/polymer composites and the possibility of applications of the nano composites are introduced in this lecture.

Drug-loaded PLGA nanospheres prepared using the emulsion solvent diffusion (ESD) method developed by Kawashimaʼs group could be applied further to not only pharmaceuticals, including tablets, injection, topical creams, powder inhalation (DPI) but also cosmetic delivery system and medical devices such as stents and balloon catheters based on our DDS platforms that was established by cooperation with academia, industry and government team under the funding by NEDO.

We have firstly launched a new hair restorations named “NanoImpact (2006),” involving several crude drugs loaded into PLGA nanospheres as well as functional skin-care cosmetic “Nano Crysphere (2004),” which has pro-vitamin C-loaded PLGA nanospheres etc. A nano- drug-delivery system (DDS) using PLGA nanosphere system cooperated is going on their clinical trials.

This paper briefly describes those PLGA nanosphere technologies.