Sakizō Yai

Sakizō Yai (屋井 先蔵, January 13, 1864 - June 1, 1927) was a Japanese businessman and the inventor of a type of dry cell battery.

Life Sakizō Yai was born on January 13, 1864, at the house of Yai, to a samurai family in the Nagaoka Domain (currently Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture). The Yai family was an upper-class samurai family which held a property of more than 300 koku for generations, but at the age of six Sakizō's father died and the house went bankrupt. After this, his mother and his uncle took him over.

In 1885, at the age of 21, Yai invented a continuous electric clock powered by wet-cell batteries. Electrically-powered clocks already existed, but they had conventional spring-powered clockwork movements, with electricity used to wind up the spring, while Yai's was a breakthrough, powered directly by a battery he had made. and the patent for the first dry battery in Japan was obtained by the electrician Ichisaburo Takahashi. Carl Gassner patented the dry cell battery in Germany and Helensen patented the dry cell battery in Denmark in 1888. He was 63 years old.