AWARDS

The 18th (2018) Green and Sustainable Chemistry Awards Winners

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Awarded by the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry

Development of Water-based Inkjet Ink for Food Package

Tsuyoshi EGAWA, Azusa KURODA, Hiroki KAWAGUCHI, Sho SAKAUE and Yuichi TAMURA

Kao Corporation

     Printing on flexible film packaging is increasingly moving towards shorter run lengths and higher customization. This shift makes inkjet printing even more attractive because digital data can quickly and easily be converted directly to print. Quick evaporating solvent-based inks are typically used for flexible film packaging, but these inks contain Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and may pose a risk to health and the environment. We have developed a VOC-less water-based inkjet ink using nano pigment dispersion technology for flexible film packaging.

Awarded by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology

Development of Trifluoromethylation Reaction by HFC-23

Norio SHIBATA

Nagoya Institute of Technology

     A simple protocol to overcome the problematic trifluoromethylation of carbonyl compounds by the potent greenhouse gas "HFC-23, fluoroform" with a potassium base is described. Simply the use of glymes as a solvent or an additive dramatically improves the yields of this transformation. Experimental results and DFT calculations suggest that the beneficial effect deals with glyme coordination to the K+ to produce [K(polyether)n]+ whose diminished Lewis acidity renders the reactive anionoid CF3 counterion species more 'naked', thereby slowing down its undesirable decomposition to CF2 and F- and simultaneously increasing its reactivity towards the organic substrate.

Awarded by the Minister of the Environment

Improvement of Heat Insulating Property and Its Long Term Stability in High Performance Foamed Plastic Insulation Material

Asahi Kasei Construction Materials Corporation

     High performance foamed plastic insulation material has an advantage over the fiber insulation material for its superior heat insulation performance. However, deterioration in its heat insulation property was the key challenge for high performance foamed plastic insulation materials. We developed phenolic foam that shows excellent heat insulation property and its long term stability without using chlorofluorocarbon and fluorocarbon blowing agents.

Venture Capitals Award

Development of Diagnostic and Sorting Technology for Reusing Battery

Eiji TABATA

Goiku Battery Company, Limited

     This is the new method for analyzing the capacity of rechargeable battery within a very short time. We can analyze the capacity by measuring Dir (Dynamic internal resistance). Dir is analyzed by measuring the small change of voltage and current during charging. Dir indicates the performance of electrode of the battery, and leads the capacity of rechargeable battery. Our new method analyses the performance of electrode by measuring Dir, then it can be done in 1 second. This new method is based on the classic battery reaction theory.

Venture Capitals Award

Development of High Filling Type New Material with Inorganic Filler

TBM Company, Limited

     In response to the stong needs for alternative materials of paper and plastic with small environmental impacts, we have developed a new material called "LIMEX". Its main raw material is limestone, which is known to be almost inexhaustible on the Earth. Our technologies realize the uniform dispersion of limestone powder in thermoplastic resin at a high ratio in melt-kneading and sheet forming by extruding and stable quality sheet stretching while controlling the microvoids in the sheet.

Incentive Award

Development of a Highly Safe and High Energy Density Lithium-ion Secondary Battery Using a New, Hardly Combustible Electrolyte

Atsushi UNEMOTO(*1), Jun KAWAJI(*1), Takefumi OKUMURA(*1) and Itaru HONMA(*2)

(*1)Hitachi, Limited, (*2)Tohoku University

     A highly safe 100 Wh-class laminated lithium ion secondary battery (LIB) was developed. For ensuring safety of the LIB, a liquid electrolyte, mainly comprised of solvate ionic liquid, was quasi-solidifed at oxide particle surfaces. The LIB based on this electrolyte design principles, our LIB realized an energy of 115 Wh (capacity: 32Ah) and an energy density of 363 Wh L-1. It exhibited high discharge capacity of 26.2 Ah at 2 C, and good cycle life, i.e., 118th discharge capacity retention ratio of 96 %. The developed LIB generated neither fire nor smoke in a nail-penetration test, demonstrating its high safety.

Incentive Award

Synthesis of C4 Chemical Products by the Combination of Microbial Conversion and Catalytic Technology Using Unused Biomass Resources as Raw Materials

Daicel Corporation, Keiichi TOMISHIGE(*1), Yoshinao NAKAGAWA(*1), Takafumi KASUMI(*2), Jun OGIHARA(*2)

(*1)Tohoku University, (*2)Nihon University

     We perform technology development to producing chemicals that are currently manufactured from oil as raw materials, from unused waste glycerin. At first by biotechnology, we convert glycerin into erythritol as a versatile intermediate. Next, we convert erythritol into industrial raw materials such as monoalcohols, diols, and tetrahydrofuran by catalytic reaction that produce various expensive basic chemicals. To overcome the technical issues, we combine both technologies with extracting their strong points to the maximum, by the construction of the integrated industrial process.

Incentive Award

Realization of No-invasive Blood Glucose Monitoring with No Finger Prick and Zero Waste

Koichi YAMAKAWA

Light Touch Techonology Inc.

     Diabetes mellitus concerns more than 415 million people worldwide, with increasing tendency. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 80% of the diabetes-related deaths occur in low- and middleincome countries, making this disease a global challenge. True non-invasive glucose measurements procedures are presently not available to the diabetic patient. There have been many different approaches without useful results. We propose a new concept to measure glucose non-invasively based on a high-brightness mid-infrared laser. The precision was achieved ±20% in the range from 60 mg/dL to 200 mg/dL of glucose concentrations in vivo monitoring to date. This is in agreement with the requirements of the ISO 15197:2013 standard.

Incentive Award

Development of Novel Solid Catalysts Including Hydride Ions and Application to Low-temperature Ammonia Synthesis

Masaaki KITANO

Tokyo Institute of Technology

     Hydride materials such as Ca2NH, Ba2NH, CaH2, and Ln2(Ln = La, Ce, Y) function as efficient promoter for Ru catalysts in ammonia synthesis. These are not intrinsically low work function materials, while anionic electrons with a low work function are formed at hydride vacancies, which promote N2 dissociation on Ru surface. Furthermore, Barium-doped calcium amide (Ba-Ca(NH2)2) enhances the efficacy of ammonia synthesis mediatedby Ru and Co by 2 orders of magnitude more than that of a conventional Ru catalyst at low temperatures.

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