The ultra-low-temperature protonic ceramic fuel cell developed by Prof. Yoshihiro Yamazaki (Q-PIT, Department of Materials, Kyushu University) has been selected as one of the Top 10 Emerging Technologies for 2026 by the Council on Competitiveness-Nippon (COCN) — an advisory body with direct influence on Japan’s Cabinet Office, METI, and MEXT.

This recognition follows a key breakthrough published in Nature Materials (August 2025): by engineering ScO₆ octahedral networks in cubic perovskite oxides, the Yamazaki group demonstrated efficient proton conduction at just 300°C — well below the operating range of conventional solid oxide fuel cells. The advance resolves a long-standing trade-off between dopant concentration and ion mobility, opening a path toward lower-cost, practically deployable hydrogen power systems.

The full COCN 2026 Emerging Technologies report is available here.

Reference: Tsujikawa et al., “Mitigating proton trapping in cubic perovskite oxides via ScO₆ octahedral networks,” Nature Materials 24, 1949 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02311-w