No. 119: Effective utilization of waste heat from the production of electric materials (August 1, 2010)

TDK Corp., one of Japan’s leading producers of electric materials, will intensify its efforts for effective utilization of waste heat from the production of electric materials including ferrite. It will select two model plants to develop the technology to collect heat emitted from the heating furnace. Molded oxidized iron is burnt and hardened at higher than 1,000 degrees centigrade in the heating furnace to produce ferrite. More than half of the total energy used in the production is consumed in the heat treatment, and the waste heat is currently discharged. The energy efficiency estimated at 10%, and the company wishes to increase it to higher than 30% toward 2020. Ferrite is used in mobile phones and voltage conversion parts specially designed for hybrid cars, and it is necessary to work out measures for growing demand for ferrite and decreasing carbon dioxide emissions. The company plans to decrease carbon dioxide emissions by more than 20% toward 2015 as compared with that of 2005.