#22Lead-free Solder: Strategy for Eco-design

Since Japan passed the Electric Appliance Recycling Law in April 2001, every household appliance and home electronics manufacturer has been reexamining the use of pollutant-containing materials including products that are not specifically covered by the law, and many are working hard to establish recycling technology and incorporate recycling planning at the product design stage.(Read More...)

#21Ancient Japanese Paper-making Techniques Alive in the Information Age

The etymology of the word "paper" lies in the Egyptian word "papyrus," but paper is actually believed to have originated about two thousand years ago in China. Remains of a hemp paper have been recovered from tombs that date between 202B.C. and A.D.8. That paper appears to have been made of fragments of fiber left suspended in water used in the process of spinning thread out of cotton and flax, that were then dried into a paper material. Refinement of that manufacturing process took place between A.D.25 and A.D.220, resulting in the creation of paper-making techniques that are the foundation of the paper-making technology we use today.(Read More...)

#20Multi-purpose Aero Park

The Multi-purpose Aero Park opened in 1995 in Taiki-cho of Japan's northernmost island Hokkaido. Taiki-cho is comprised on over 10,000 hectares of very solid and flat land, and is blessed with scare rainfall and snowfall and long hours of sunlight, all excellent conditions for the aerospace industry.(Read More...)

#19Ocean Farming

Ocean farming is one of the unique agricultural technologies that Japan can boast of to the world, perhaps best represented by seaweed cultivation including the farming of nori and kombu. Among seaweed and algae that have important properties is one that has lately garnered a lot of attention, namely mozuku. (Read More...)

#18Sashimono Joinery Gives Rise to Plastic Model Making

Plastic model kits are one of the premier indigenous industries of Shizuoka Prefecture, and Shizuoka model makers own roughly 70% of the market. How did it happen that plastic models developed in Shizuoka? In the part of the prefecture where wood was cut from the famed Kiso trees including hinoki cypress, woodworking crafts have flourished for hundreds of years, basically starting about 460 years ago when lacquer bowls brought the lacquer-making industry to the fore. (Read More...)

#17Deep Seawater Business To Develop Local Economies

Deep seawater has many superior qualities including: low temperature, being about nine degrees cooler than surface seawater and varying little over the course of a year's seasonal changes on the surface; nutrient-rich, being loaded with the inorganic nutrient salts that are needed for the growth of sea vegetation; maturity, from having "ripened" under a water pressure of at least 30 over many years; and purity, in the biological, scientific and physical sense, being free from contamination by bacteria, chemical substances and suspended particles. (Read More...)

#16Breed Improvement Through Plant Hormones

Plant life as a source of food and as a resource for absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is critical for the future comfort of the human race. The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken) is conducting research into plant hormones, not in the controversial genetic modification field, but in a search for ways to improve plant varieties and regulate growth. Riken research has already yielded some important results. (Read More...)

#15Design of Mechanisms for Urban Greening

In our cities, asphalt paving acts to keep temperatures from cooling down since water cannot accumulate in the soil, causing the heat of the day to continue to be emitted throughout the night, and together with high density energy consumption gives rise to the heat island syndrome, where air temperatures remain at higher than normal levels. As a result, a vicious circle is created wherein demand for air conditioning during summer months escalates and heat exhaust causes temperatures to rise even higher. (Read More...)

#14A Keyboard with Just Ten Keys Simplifies Typing

There is a writer of historical romances called Ransei Etoh. This writer suffers partial paralysis from a spinal disability. He has always used a computer and his disabled fingers to type out his novels. Among his friends was a student at the University of Tokyo, who conceived of an utterly new type of computer handset made just for typing in Japanese in order to enhance his friend Etoh's literary life. (Read More...)

#13Technology Revives The Art of Lacquering

Japan uses about 500 tons of lacquer every year to decorate lacquerware and Buddhist altars, etc. Most of that is imported from China and Vietnam. Only 7.5 tons of lacquer is produced in Japan. But even when cheaper imported lacquer is used as a basecoat, the decoration of high-quality lacquerware still requires Japanese lacquer, which has a high gloss and transparency. (Read More...)

#12Putting the Special Properties of Silk to Work

The Search for New Functionality in Silk Proteins

Today many Asian nations are reaping success with low cost silk production, but a cottage industry sericulture as seen in the past has not materialized as a result. But as the importance of producing and using ecologically responsible materials is now meriting serious discussion, the potential of silk filament as an important raw material outside of the textile and apparel market is growing. (Read More...)