Manufacturing Technology

Mitsubishi Corporation: Initiation of “Technology Development for Para-xylene Production from CO2”

We, University of Toyama, Chiyoda Corporation, Nippon Steel Engineering Co., Ltd., Nippon Steel Corporation, HighChem Company Limited, and Mitsubishi Corporation (hereinafter collectively referred to as the “Group”) are pleased to announce that the Group has jointly applied for and been selected by NEDO(1) for “Development of Technologies for Carbon Recycling and Next-Generation Thermal Power Generation / Development of Technologies for CO2 Reduction and Utilization / Development of Technologies for CO2 Utilisation for Chemicals.” Summary:In order to cope with global climate change, it is necessary to address the issue of CO2 emissions from factories, power plants, and various emission sources while pursuing all possible technological options including carbon recycling technologies. “Roadmap for Carbon Recycling Technologies” formulated by METI(2) in June 2019 sets forth guidelines for utilisation of carbon recycling technologies for separating and collecting CO2 as resources and reusing it in the form of diverse carbon compounds for chemical materials or fuels. Against this backdrop, NEDO has launched a development project for the world’s most advanced technology for industrial para-xylene(3) production from CO2 to substitute existing fossil fuel-derived chemicals, and the Group has been selected as contractors for this commissioned project. Para-xylene is a particularly important basic compound in the production of PTA(4) which is a feedstock material for polyesters such as polyester fibers and plastic bottles. Due to its composition, it can be produced with a relatively small amount of hydrogen while fixing a large amount of CO2, compared to other compounds from carbon recycling. This is a theme with great potential from both economic and environmental perspectives. The global demand for para-xylene is approximately 49 million tons per year. Assuming that the feedstock for para-xylene of the current demand level is entirely converted from fossil fuels to CO2, theoretically 160 million tons of CO2 could be fixed in the […]

MOC-TCI Asia Chapter Conference 2020 July 6-7, 14.00

Hosted by the National University of Mongolia, the members from the two networks, MOC and TCI Asia will gather in this virtual conference to explore how the new normal is shaping and exchange experiences on how Asian clusters and innovation ecosystems are fast adapting to it. On the first day, July 6, the members of the MOC Asia Network will share the conceptual frameworks of clustering and the new normal throughout Asia, including among others country cases from Mongolia and Taiwan, and tackling the new challenges around online teaching. The second day, July 7, at the TCI Asia webinar, we will showcase how global clusters are working in practice in times of coronavirus and adapting to the new normal, with a focus on rethinking the existing cluster development models and global trends. We will showcase global cases and stories from Asian members, of how clusters and economic development organisations are making a difference in the path to economic recovery. Look at the speakers and agenda here. For more information, please get in touch at ei@num.edu.mn

A glimpse into BYD’s Blade Battery Factory in Chongqing

On June 4, 2020, over a hundred members of the media and industry experts were given on-site access to the FinDreams Battery Factory in Chongqing that produces the BYD Blade Battery. This is the first factory tour that BYD has conducted since it debuted the Blade Battery on March 29, presenting the factory’s intelligent manufacturing capabilities. Located in the city’s Bishan District, the factory is currently the only production base for the Blade Battery. It possesses a highly demanding production environment and much of BYD’s self-developed Blade Battery production equipment. The factory has a total investment of 10 billion yuan with an annual production capacity of 20GWH. The nature of the factory’s environment can be seen in the core production process. For example, requirements necessitate that within one cubic meter space, fine particles equivalent to 1/20th of a single hair (or a 5-micron particle, as a hair is 100 microns), cannot exceed 29, reaching the same standards as LCD screen production. The overall allowed humidity is limited to below 1% (the average daily humidity being 60-80%), and the humidity during a core production process cannot exceed 0.05% of the average moisture level. In addition, the temperature is kept constant at 25 degrees Celsius. According to Sun Huajun, the Vice General Manager of FinDreams Battery, these demanding conditions are a “necessary foundation” to the Blade Battery’s high safety standards. “The nearly one-meter-long pole piece can achieve tolerances of within +/-0.3mm, and the accuracy and speed of a single-piece lamination have an efficiency of 0.3s/pcs. This is the first of its kind in the world. This form of lamination comes from BYD’s completely independent development of its equipment and cutting-edge solutions – aspects that are uncopiable,” he said. In addition to laminations, the mixing of ingredients as well as the coating, pressing, […]

A resilient return for Asia’s manufacturing and supply chains?

By Didier Chenneveau, Matteo Mancini, and Sahil Shinghal Asia shows an early glimpse of how manufacturing and supply-chain leaders are responding to disruption caused by the pandemic. The Asia-Pacific region is at widely varying points on its journey through the COVID-19 pandemic. China is broadly beginning to restart its operations amid recovering domestic demand, while other geographies, such as Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea, are still tackling cases and under a range of control measures to help stop the spread. To understand the differing sentiment and responses among manufacturing leaders across the whole region, we surveyed more than 200 manufacturing and supply-chain leaders across industries including advanced industries; consumer goods; chemicals; metals and mining; oil and gas; construction, engineering and infrastructure; and transportation and logistics. Recovery is coming, but isn’t here yet Overall, 39 percent of respondents are confident that the manufacturing sector will recover rapidly from disruptions caused by COVID-19, estimating that as little as two to three months will be sufficient. However, 61 percent expect that recovery will take at least six months. Once we looked at responses split by subregions across Asia Pacific—Australia and New Zealand; China; Japan and South Korea; South Asia; and Southeast Asia—we saw that optimism closely aligns with the stage of progression through the pandemic timeline. Nearly half of respondents in China expect rapid recovery, possibly because the country is further along the timeline in its pandemic response. Responses from Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea, on the other hand, report markedly lower confidence in a swift recovery. The majority of these regions are still tackling cases and only just beginning to ease lockdown measures—South Korea is currently preparing to slowly and cautiously proceed to the next normal under “everyday quarantine” measures. Japan’s lack of confidence is worth noting, as the country has a […]

Industry’s first secure SmartNIC Optimised for 25G

NVIDIA has launched the NVIDIA Mellanox ConnectX-6 Lx SmartNIC — a highly secure and efficient 25/50 gigabit per second (Gb/s) Ethernet smart network interface controller (SmartNIC) — to meet surging growth in enterprise and cloud scale-out workloads. ConnectX-6 Lx, the 11th generation product in the ConnectX family, is designed to meet the needs of modern data centers, where 25Gb/s connections are becoming standard for handling demanding workflows, such as enterprise applications, AI and real-time analytics. The SmartNIC extends accelerated computing by leveraging software-defined, hardware-accelerated engines to offload more security and network processing from CPUs. “Modern cloud and enterprise data centers rely on accelerated networking to address their scalability and compute challenges,” said Amit Krig, senior vice president of software and NIC products in NVIDIA’s Mellanox networking business. “ConnectX-6 Lx SmartNIC delivers cost-effective, accelerated and secure networking for the new era of disaggregated, composable data centres.” Advanced Security Accelerated security features such as IPsec in-line cryptography and Hardware Root of Trust, and a 10x performance improvement for Connection Tracking, enable Zero Trust security throughout the data center. Best-in-class RDMA over converged Ethernet (RoCE), advanced virtualisation and containerisation, and NVMe over Fabrics storage offloads provide highly scalable and performant networking. “The server industry is rapidly transitioning from 10GbE to 25GbE network speeds with very fast growth expected. With increasing requirements being placed on the network, more offloads need to be performed on SmartNICs,” said Scott Raynovich, founder and chief technologist of Futuriom, a technology research firm. “NVIDIA’s Mellanox ConnectX-6 Lx enables SmartNIC offloads, including advanced switching and security, in a cost-efficient 25/50GbE solution.” Key Features The Mellanox ConnectX-6 Lx provides: Two ports of 25Gb/s, or a single port of 50Gb/s, Ethernet connectivity with PCIe Gen 3.0/4.0 x8 host connectivity Security features including Hardware Root of Trust, Connection Tracking for stateful L4 firewalls, […]

New Ceresana study on the global market for polyethylene-LLDPE

Linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) is one of the most widely used types of standard plastics. Other varieties of polyethylene, especially LDPE and HDPE, are sometimes easier to process; however, LLDPE is more flexible and has a higher resistance against tearing, shocks, and punctures. These special properties are the result of the manufacturing process: copolymerisation with alkenes at low temperatures and low pressure results in polymer chains with short branches only. Ceresana releases its third comprehensive report on the global market for linear low-density polyethylene. Bags for China LLDPE films can be produced with reduced thickness, therefore saving considerable amounts of materials. Carrier bags, pouches, packaging materials, and agricultural covering films can be made of LLDPE, among others. The present study expects average growth of approx. 4.1% per year in the global demand for LLDPE until 2026. With a share of 51% of global demand volumes, the region Asia-Pacific is by far the largest consumer of LLDPE. Packaging Films are Main Application The most important sales market for LLDPE in 2018 was the application area “packaging films” with demand of 11.46 million tonnes, followed by bags and sacks. The entire packaging market, including rigid packaging, currently amounts to around 70% of total demand. However, more and more polyethylene of this type is used for other applications: the demand for LLDPE for the production of vehicles, toys, electronic and electrical devices, household appliances, medical technology, as well as mechanical and plant engineering will presumably achieve the highest percentage increases until 2026 with rates of 3.0% per year. Processing by Means of Extrusion Dominates Market The most important processing method for LLDPE is extrusion. More than 24.3 million tonnes of LDPE were processed around the globe in 2018 by means of film extrusion alone. Analysts at Ceresana expect that the global extrusion of […]

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Aquila fully PU coated Nylon gloves for ambulance drivers, nursing home carers

In this desperate and urgent time of uncontrollably high demand for single use gloves, Aquila offer their high-quality alternative range of washable fully PU coated nylon gloves, suitable for front-line workers such as ambulance drivers, nursing home carers, council operatives, the police etc. The comfortable nylon lined CC9009 and CB9009 gloves are considered to offer a superior solution for use outside the hospital work space – since their stretchy PU coating is not permeable and therefore forms a better barrier than single use nitrile disposable gloves. Their light weight and soft flexibility offer maximum dexterity and minimise hand fatigue over the duration of long work periods. It has also been suggested that wearing of one-time disposable gloves may not be as good a prevention as simple washing of hands – for front line attenders and carers this may be required so frequently that it is not a practical option. Frequent washing of PU gloves on the other hand allows for the sanitising action of soap/detergent as often as desired. These ex-stock CC9009 (white PU nylon gloves) or CB9009 (black PU nylon gloves) are highly suitable for use in these front-line support roles, although not to medical grade as would be required for use inside a hospital. In addition, Aquila PU nylon gloves can be washed and reused again and are therefore better for the environment than single use nitrile disposable gloves, which are in any case experiencing considerable delivery issues due to uncontrollably high demand, and being non-recyclable are already causing significant disposal problems.

Yokogawa acquires Danish startup Grazper Technologies, specialists in AI for image analytics

Yokogawa Electric Corporation announces that on March 20, 2020, it completed the acquisition of all shares in Denmark-based Grazper Technologies ApS (Grazper), as mutually agreed. Grazper has developed advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for analysing images, and Yokogawa aims to leverage these technologies within its various existing businesses and to develop new industrial AI solutions. Recent advances in deep learning and related technologies have enabled the practical application of AI in industry, and it is expected that as image identification and data forecasting accuracy continue to improve, the use of AI will only expand further. In particular, by improving the recognition accuracy for moving imagery, it becomes possible to observe the overall environment and context of the whole image, opening up new applications in the security field and for image analysis and robot operations on production lines. Grazper is a venture company founded in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2015, and later funded by Danish venture capital firm Promentum Equity Partners. It possesses advanced AI-based technologies for image analysis, and one notable strength is a solution that allows AI software to run efficiently on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA*), a type of integrated circuit. The software employs image recognition methodologies that have been theorised using algorithms and 3D modeling, and it can be operated with limited computing resources. Yokogawa is developing and providing AI-based solutions for plants and public infrastructure projects. Acquiring Grazper’s technology will enable the company to provide solutions that use AI for image analysis, such as capturing image information for robots, detecting abnormalities at plants, and monitoring security using cameras. As a first step, Yokogawa’s subsidiary, amnimo Inc., will embed Grazper’s FPGA IP core into its Edge Gateway industrial LTE gateway, which is currently under development. This will make possible solutions for smart city projects and security applications […]

TDK joins the Responsible Business Alliance

RBA is an industry coalition dedicated to corporate social responsibility in global supply chains TDK is committed to endorse the vision and mission of the RBA across the global TDK entities and to strengthen its CSR activities. TDK Corporation has recently joined the Responsible Business Alliance (headquartered in Virginia, U.S.A., the world’s largest industry coalition dedicated to corporate social responsibility in global supply chains. As an Affiliate Member of the RBA, TDK fully supports the vision and mission of the RBA and continuously improve its own operations in accordance with the RBA Code of Conduct. TDK will also support and encourage its first-tier suppliers to do the same. RBA Vision and mission Vision: A global electronics industry that creates sustainable value for workers, the environment and business. Mission: Members, suppliers and stakeholders collaborate to improve working and environmental conditions through leading standards and practices. The purpose of joining the RBA is to bolster efforts for the rights, health and safety of workers in the global TDK Group and its first-tier suppliers, as well as for the environment. To fulfill our social responsibility and further enhance the credibility of the TDK Group by publicly pledging to practice the RBA Code of Conduct, the global standard, and making it the clear standard for the TDK Group. TDK will continue to put in practice its corporate motto, “Contribute to culture and industry through creativity,” and strengthen its CSR activities with its customers, suppliers and other stakeholders to advance the development of a sustainable society and champion well-being for all people through its innovative core technologies and solutions. TDK Corporation is a leading electronics company based in Tokyo, Japan. It was established in 1935 to commercialise ferrite, a key material in electronic and magnetic products. TDK’s comprehensive portfolio features passive components such as ceramic, aluminum […]

Aquila address waste processing/recycling industry with specialist glove

Aquila address recycling industry with specialist glove

The Aquila RE05F represents the purpose designed personal protection approach of Aquila for the waste processing and recycling industries, where the range of risks varies widely from process to process. Glove development for these applications makes life safer and more comfortable for operatives – in the case of the RE05F this is typically in a picking role at the conveyor belt stage where it provides extra protection from fast moving objects. The RE05F is cut resistant and double-coated with foam and full flat nitrile which provides excellent abrasion resistance. This is achieved with 100% cut resistant yarn throughout the glove (not just on the palm), followed by a two-stage foam and flat dip process, making the glove waterproof and chemical resistant, whilst maintaining an excellent grip and appropriate dexterity to suit general purpose usage. Related Aquila products for the waste processing/recycling industries include much of their impact protection range featuring TPE (thermal plastic elastomer) on back of hand and fingers for protection against fast moving hard/sharp objects at picking stations on conveyor belts. Good examples are the TOG4B with genuine Alkimos cut 4 yarn guaranteeing full cut resistance not just on the palm but throughout the glove. An additional nitrile coating with sandy finish greatly aids grip levels in both wet and dry environments, with excellent oil and chemical resistance. The sister TOG6W includes an extra comfortable brushed liner for added warmth – suitable for temperatures down to -30°C. Further information may be found at: www.aquilaglove.com

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