No. 481: Successful development of equipment for in-house power generation using garbage (April 9, 2012)

Technology

Garbage produced inside an office building is mostly treated by an outside waste disposal contractor for about 20,000 yen per ton. Shimizu, one of Japan’s leading general contractors, developed equipment for in-house power generation for office buildings that uses garbage for generation. The newly developed equipment disposes of nearly all garbage including waste paper produced internally in an office building and makes it possible to reuse them as a source of energy. It has been hard to use garbage for in-house generation because it contains water, but the company successfully solved this problem.

Garbage is first dried and mixed with dry trash like paper waste, and subsequently is smothered in an oxygen-free condition to produce biogas. The biogas is ignited and burnt to generate by the gas engine for air-conditioning and lighting inside the building. The company will evaluate and test the generation performance of the equipment and wishes to put it into practical use after the spring of 2013. The price is not yet decided. This is reportedly the first in-house power generation equipment that uses garbage. 

 Shimizu's state-of-the-art technology to reduce carbon oxide emissions

No. 480: A Japanese plant factory goes to Russia (April 6, 2012)

Business trend

Senkon Logistics based in the Tohoku district shipped a plant factory to the Far Eastern region of Russia. Using the marketing channel of its business partner, VL Logistics, the company plans to sell plant factories to local supermarkets. Targeting the cold district where fresh vegetables are hard to get, it wishes to stimulate demand for fresh vegetables and expand the market to the entirely Siberia. A supermarket chain in Vladivostok has decided to purchase a plant factory on trial. The supermarket chain plans to produce vegetables with a daily production capacity of 100 pieces, but it will purchase additional factories to increase the production capacity and sell vegetables produced in the plant factories through all its outlets staring this autumn.

Espec, a Tokyo-based company specializing in environment-related equipment, will build the plant factory. It is a 20 feet-40 feet container-like factory that grows lettuce, basil, sweet herbs for a 20-30 day cycle under the strict management of light, temperature, water, and fertilizer. As it is rather hard to grow vegetables in such a cold area as the Far Eastern region of Russia, Japanese vegetables grown in a plant factory are expected to be sold 2-3 times higher than locally-produced vegetables. In particular, Japanese vegetables are supposed to be in great demand in winter. Senkon plans to expand the market to Irkutsk and cover the entire Siberian market in the future.

 Pant factory 

No. 479: The car navigation system grows more sophisticated (April 5, 2012)

Technology

The Advanced Road Transportation System (ARTS) that is the next-generation Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) will be available in 2012. ARTS will deliver such information as inter-vehicle distance and empty lanes in addition to traffic jams. The government plans to install the antennas for this system in a total of 1,600 spots on super express highways across the country. This decision makes it possible to provide information on traffic jams in other prefectures even if you are driving inside Tokyo. In the future, ARTS will let the driver know which lane allows him to driver faster. The demonstration test will start soon.

The car navigation system supporting ARTS can be loaded on Toyota’s Lexus, and Nissan also responds to the request from applicants. Consumer electronics manufacturers like Panasonic are busily developing the car navigation system for ARTS. The new and more sophisticated car navigation system will allow for settlement on the screen. Users will be able to pay for parking, gasoline, and purchases on the service area by the navigation system in place of credit card. They will also be able to get the shortest driving route to the specific parking lot of the destination that they designate on the screen.     

     ITS spot service

No. 478: Successful development of a capacitor with a volume of one-third of the existing capacitor (April 4, 2012)

Technology

According to a research company, the world capacitor market that combines the lithium-ion type and electric double layer type is expected to increase 3.5 times over the level in 2010 to about 300 billion yen in 2016. Meidensha developed a capacitor whose volume is one third of the volume of the conventional capacitor in alliance with Sumitomo Electric using Sumitomo Electric’s lightweight metallic material that is excellent in conductivity. Because a capacitor can run electric components of a car besides lengthening the life of a lithium-ion battery, it will helpful to reduce the capacity of a battery and increase fuel consumption.

The conventional electric double layer capacitor uses aluminum foil or activated charcoal for the electrode material, but the newly developed capacitor uses Aluminum Celmet developed by Sumitomo Electric. Because this material has small holes on the surface and inside, it is 30% lighter than nickel and two times higher in electric conductivity than the existing capacitor. The new capacitor is 15 cm deep and 13 cm wide. Despite the small size, it has five times more storage capacity and creates 10 times more instantaneous power than the existing capacitor. Meidensha plans to commercialize the new capacitor before 2015 to get 30% share in the environmentally friendly vehicle market by 2020 with sales of 50 billion yen. 

Introduction of lithium-ion capacitor

No. 477: A product of miniaturization technology (April 3, 2012)

Technology

With the new device from Sony Mobile Communications, you can operate your smart phone even if it is in your bag. The company will introduce the “Smart Watch” that allows you to check mails and play music by remote control to the Japanese domestic market on April 10. The new device has a 1.3-inch organic electroluminescence screen with a resolution of 128x128 pixels and employs Bluetooth designed for short distance wireless communications. It works together with Sony’s smartphone Xperia.

Using the touch panel of the smart watch, you can check information received by your smartphone, confirm weather forecasting, and dispatch information on SNS like Facebook. Because it supports Google’s applications, you can customize your smartphone by adding software programs downloaded from Google Play. Because it is detachable, you can take it apart from the wristband and use the body as a clip to be attached to bag or clothes. It is 36 mm wide, 36 mm deep, and 8 mm high. It weighs about 42 g including the wristband. It will be sold through Sony’s Internet website for 9,480 yen.

 Sony's Smart Watch

No. 476: Japan’s first system to produce biomass fuel from dehydrated sludge goes into operation soon (April 2, 2012)

Technology

Japan’s first system to produce biomass fuel from dehydrate sludge with the help of the low-temperature carbonization technology has been completed. Three companies of J-Power, Tsukishima Kikai, and Metawater jointly constructed system in Hiroshima city. The constituent includes sludge dryer, carbonizing furnace, and granulator. The system will start operation soon in April. A total cost including the construction cost and the 20-year operating cost is about 9,300 million yen.

The system has a capacity to treat 4,500 tons of sludge annually, 46% of total sludges generated in Hiroshima city in a year. With the completion of the system, the city will reduce carbon dioxide emissions 8,700 tons annually. In addition, decreased fossil fuel consumption will reduce carbon dioxide emissions 6,400 tons annually, making the total reduction of carbon dioxide emissions 15,100 tons annually. The system decreases the carbonization temperature to 250-300 degrees centigrade that is from half to one-third of the temperature of the conventional carbonization technology. The low carbonization temperature enables carbide to realize high calorific value, increasing the value of the generated biomass fuel. Granulation in the pre-carbonization stage makes the spontaneous combustibility low. The fuel to be produced will be sold and mixed with coal fuel. 

 A biomass production plant

No. 475: The next-generation digital signage for sales promotion responding to such attributes as gender and age (April 1, 2012)

Technology

The digital signage market is growing very fast with technological progress. Toppan Printing, one of Japan’s leading printing companies, developed a digital signage that distributes information responding to the attributes of each consumer. With the face recognition function, it can be used for sales promotion suitable to such attributes as gender and age of each consumer. Using the FOMA line that is the third-generation mobile phone service, the operating center monitors the apparatus and does maintenance for it. It can update latest information any time with the help of the cloud computing infrastructure.

The 46-inch LCD monitor to be employed can display an image of 1,700 Candela and 1,366x768 pixels. Everyone can use it intuitively because a touch panel is loaded, and get coupons by accessing to the special website of the signage using mobile phone. The new digital signage responds to four languages and has the function to distribute information on shopping and event schedule. The company will ship the new signage equipped with an LCD monitor that can display an image of 1,920x1,080 pixels to a leading department store in Tokyo in late April. 

A digital signage in Tokyo Station