Esther Sans Takeuchi
Energy storage expert Esther Sans Takeuchi led efforts to invent and refine the lithium/silver vanadium oxide (Li/SVO) battery technology used to power the majority of today's lifesaving implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs).
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1953, Takeuchi grew up in Akron, Ohio. Her parents had left Soviet-occupied Latvia as political refugees. Her father became an electrical engineer for Goodyear Aerospace and her mother, who had earned a degree in economics, worked in home healthcare. From a young age, Takeuchi took an interest in understanding how things worked. She recalls going to parks with her brother and breaking open used golf balls to investigate what was inside. “That was a delightful thing, that we would take apart these golf balls, unwrap these giant rubber bands, and then recover these balls that we could play with afterwards,” she said.
Takeuchi earned a bachelor’s degree in history and chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975. In 1981, she earned her doctorate in organic chemistry from Ohio State University, where she met her husband, an inorganic chemist. She did postdoctoral work at the University of North Carolina and later at SUNY Buffalo.
In 1984, Takeuchi joined Greatbatch Inc., a major supplier of pacemaker and only later ICD batteries, as a senior chemist. An ICD is designed to be placed under a patient’s skin, with thin wires connecting the device to the patient’s heart. It is used to monitor the patient’s heart rate, and if an abnormal rhythm is detected, the ICD delivers an electric shock to restore a normal heartbeat. Though ICDs had proven to be effective in preventing sudden death in patients with a high risk of a life-threatening arrhythmia, the batteries used in them had a short lifespan. They typically lasted just 12 to 18 months, putting patients at risk.
“In order to replace the battery you’d need to do surgery and replace the whole device, and surgery every year for someone who has heart disease to begin with is just not a good idea,” Takeuchi explained. In her first project at Greatbatch, she took on the challenge of creating a small, powerful ICD battery that could last up to five years.
After working on this project for a year, Takeuchi successfully developed the Li/SVO battery. Its cathodes employed two metals, silver and vanadium, rather than just one, allowing for more energy. In addition, the Li/SVO chemistry enabled the ICD to monitor the battery’s level of discharge, allowing it to predict its end of service in a reliable manner.
In 1985, the first two models of Takeuchi’s Li/SVO battery were sold to Telectronics in Australia and Cardiac Pacemakers Inc. (CPI) in the U.S. Three years later, the first human implant of the Li/SVO battery took place in Australia using a Telectronics product, and CPI received Food and Drug Administration approval of its battery model. Today, people throughout the world benefit from ICDs, including more than 800,000 Americans. Nationwide, about 150,000 ICDs are implanted each year.
Takeuchi worked for Greatbatch for 22 years and became chief scientist at the Center for Excellence in 2006. In 2007, she joined SUNY Buffalo and served as Greatbatch Professor of chemical and biological engineering, electrical engineering and chemistry. She moved to Stony Brook University in 2012, where she currently serves as a SUNY Distinguished Professor, and William and Jane Knapp Chair of Energy and the Environment with a joint appointment as chief scientist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. She also manages the Interdisciplinary Science Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory. In 2020 she co-founded the Institute of Energy: Sustainability, Environment and Equity at Stony Brook University to contribute to the transition to clean energy.
Named on more than 150 U.S. patents, Takeuchi has received many honors and awards, including the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2008. This is the highest honor awarded in the U.S. for technological achievement.
Looking to the future, Takeuchi acknowledges the challenges presented by increased energy usage. “I think a combination of energy efficiency, energy storage and all those things combined are going to be important in moving forward to address the energy needs of the world in the next 10 to 20 years,” she has said. “It's a critical challenge that needs to be addressed."
As she continues to innovate, Takeuchi is committed to fostering collaboration among scientists who represent a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives. “A different perspective can oftentimes lead one to ask questions or solve problems that may not otherwise have been tackled,” Takeuchi said. “If everybody is looking at a problem in one way, you may not see all the dimensions of the problem that are actually there. It’s a real advantage to have diversity.”
