ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,261,296, issued on March 25, was assigned to TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).
"Active material" was invented by Hiroyuki Yamaguchi (Toyota, Japan), Hironori Daikoku (Susono, Japan), Jun Yoshida (Mishima, Japan), Kazuhiro Suzuki (Hadano, Japan) and Mitsutoshi Otaki (Susono, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A main object of the present disclosure is to provide an active material wherein an expansion upon intercalation of a metal ion such as a Li ion is suppressed. The present disclosure achieves the object by providing an active material comprising a silicon clathrate type crystal phase, and the active material includes a Na eleme...