2000 Nobel prize laureate in chemistry Shirakawa dies at 90
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's Hideki Shirakawa, a 2000 Nobel laureate in chemistry known for his discovery and development of conductive polymers, died in
Japanese chemist Hideki Shirakawa, a 2000 Nobel laureate in chemistry, has died at the age of 90, according to his family. Shirakawa, who was a professor emeritus at the University of Tsukuba, shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with American scientists Alan Heeger and Alan MacDiarmid in 2000. Their groundbreaking discovery of conductive polymers, which demonstrated that plastics can conduct electricity, has led to a wide range of applications by combining the electrical conductivity of metals with the flexibility of polymers.
Shirakawa, who graduated from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1966, joined the University of Pennsylvania as a researcher before becoming a professor at the University of Tsukuba in 1982. He also served on an expert panel for the government's science and technology policy-making body for two years.
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