New Technology Development and Value Creation
Targets and Achievements of Major Approaches
| Objective/Task | FY 2011 Goals | FY 2011 Results | Evaluation | FY 2012 Goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Improvement of development capability of new products/technology contributing tosustainable society | Establish a system to consolidate technological resources throughout the DIC Group | Proceeded with creation of research reports that are used as important media for the purpose of consolidating technological resources, achieved approximately three times the registered entries per researcher compared with the previous year, and planned active use of these resources | ★★★ | Strengthen collaboration and combining of technologies among Group companies （including overseas companies） |
| Promote development of environmentally-conscious products and services |
|
Business volume of environmentally-conscious products as a percent of all products：54% | ★★★ |
|
What We Pursue in the Themes for New Technology Development and Value Creation
The DIC Group proactively promotes the development of next generation products and new technologies that lead to sustainable growth and makes efforts in the development of high value added products by utilizing various elemental technologies, such as chemical structure design and dispersion, etc., based on synthetic resins and organic pigments, which are core materials. We focus on various domains, such as highperformance hybrid products, new materials/new high-performance materials, display/electronics, new energies, and life science, through integration of company-wide technical resources with the aim of developing new products/technologies that are original and competitive.
What We Pursue in the Themes for New Technology Development and Value Creation
Specific efforts
We are making efforts in developing water-based and solvent-less materials as well as various environment-conscious products which can be utilized to create products with consideration for the environment in various fields, such as printing, electronic/electric products, automobiles, and housing equipment, etc. that use our products.
Various inks
With printing inks, we have developed offset ink in which printability has been greatly improved by combining the elemental technologies of resin design/pigment surface process/ink combination. With gravure inks, we have
Improved the gloss and adherence on films, which had been the issue for urethane inks that excel in reducing solvent residue and recreating photolike prints, used in obverse printing of food packaging, such as bread, etc. Sun Chemical has developed various new products, such as sheet-feed printing inks and oxygen-barrier coatings, mainly for food packaging. With inkjet inks, we have been developing not only water-based
pigments but also UV curable products for industrial use.
Solar Batteries related products
In terms of solar batteries related products, we have developed weatherresistant and low-pollution UV curable Multi-Function-Glass Resin for protection coating material for front sheet and back sheet adhesive resin, which excels in humidity and heat-resistance. Sun Chemical also provides etching resist, etc.
Display/electronics Products
With LCD panel-relatedproducts, we have equipped the mass production system for TFT LCs for large panels for TVs, etc. With organic pigments, we are focusing on improving the performance of products for color filters. The brightening of pigments contributes to the reduction of electricity consumption for backlighting. In addition, we have also developed a double-sided adhesive tape with thermal conductivity to be used to release heat from LCD TVs with LED backlighting.
In addition to its heat releasing function, it can also be handled more easily compared to the existing screws. With epoxy resins, which are used to seal semiconductors or as materials for PC boards, we have continually been introducing various differentiated products that are environment-conscious, such as halogen-free products, in the market in order to respond to customer needs in detail.
In addition, we have also been promoting the development of products in the field of printed electronics*, such as coated transparent conductive f ilm and leveling agent for ultrafine coating with the unified coating thickness of a nanolevel, etc.
- *Printed electronics：They are attracting a lot of attentions due to the perspectives of mass production, cost reduction, and environmental consideration, etc. as the “next generation manufacturing process” to create electronic circuits with printing technologies.
Promotion of environment-conscious products
We will strive to develop new products and technologies that contribute to the society and increase the ratios of environment-conscious products with a great awareness for environmental consideration. We will reduce the usage of toxic substances, promote the usage of products with less toxicity, and promote the development of recyclable products and production processes with considerations to energy conservation with enhanced safety and less waste, etc. Furthermore, we will continue to conduct environmental assessment and observe the trends for legal requirements and environmental measures throughout the world in order to continue designing products that comply with chemical substance regulations in each country.
Efforts for Future Issues
In 2012, we will further enhance our coordination with domestic and overseas group companies and promote technical hybridization with the perspective of global deployment. We will also enhance our awareness for sustainability. We will consider the LCA （life cycle assessment）, through which we consider entire lifecycles of our group’s products becoming final products and being used, recycled, and disposed of through our customers. We will also make proactive efforts in identifying risks in the raw material supply chain and the technical responses toward this in order to provide our products to the market in a continual and stable manner.
- VOICE
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About Developing UV Curable Type Multi-Function-Glass Resin
The MFG （Multi-Function-Glass Resin） that we have developed is UV curable resin with the durability that is unique to nonorganic materials and suitability for painting that is unique to organic materials. Since MFG coating displays a self-cleaning property in which dirt is naturally removed with rain and water when used outdoors, it is ideal as a plastic coating material used outdoors, such as front sheet for solar batteries and various plastic parts for automobiles, etc. We are making proactive efforts to expand the usage as a superior environment-conscious product.
Polymer Technical Group 1
Koji Uemura
