Professor Koichi Asano is recent emeritus of the Tokyo Institute of Technology. His ground-breaking work in the field of mass transfer modeling has made industrial separation of the stable isotopes of oxygen and oxygen-18 by cryogenic distillation possible, which began in June 2004.
He began his studies of chemical engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1960 and became assistant professor there in 1970. He was promoted to full professor in 1984 and accepted a position as professor at Utsunomiya University in Tochigi prefecture in 1997. He was an editor of the "Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan" during 1991 and 1992. He is author of three other books and co-author of further technical books such as kagaku kogaku benran ("Chemical Engineering Handbook").