Under the Long-Term Vision “DAICEL VISION 4.0” and the Sustainable Management Policy, we are developing and expanding our technology to produce valuable products that increase human happiness in a manner friendly to both people and the planet. We aim to contribute to the emergence of a society that cycles materials.
As part of this initiative, we have been pursuing the effective use of natural resources — including cellulose, a product we have been developing for many years — to accelerate the transition away from a reliance on petroleum products through the Biomass Product Trees Concept. In addition, we have been implementing the Biomass Value Chain Concept, a framework designed to generate new social value through collaborations with a wide range of industrial sectors.

On June 23, 2022, we concluded an agreement with Kobe University to promote comprehensive collaboration between industry and academia with the aim of pursuing research, developing technologies, and contributing to society. We are conducting joint research in the areas of medical and healthcare; chemistry and bioprocesses; and green chemistry. More recently, we have been strengthening our collaboration by expanding the scope of our joint research to include the humanities and social sciences. In addition, under the terms of a project by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry incorporated in the “Fiscal 2022 Supplementary Budget: Development of Incubation and Industry-Academia Fusion Bases at Regional Core Universities” as adopted by Kobe University, we have established incubation facilities for training and exchanging researchers, students, and personnel to support entrepreneurship. This is intended to support the formation of startups along with facilities and equipment for use in joint research with companies related to biomedical membranes. We also supported the establishment of the Biomedical Membrane Research and Open Innovation Center (commonly known as the J-Innovation HUB Building), a core center for fusion between industry and academia that includes comprehensive facilities to promote open innovation. As we utilize these facilities to strengthen collaboration among industry, academia, and government, we will continue to expand our joint research and technology exchanges with Kobe University and contribute to the emergence of a sustainable society committed to recycling by implementing our innovations within society.

In October 2022, we established the One Time Energy Joint Research Program to focus on the co-creation of original value through collaboration between industry and academia. In this program, we are addressing themes for joint research that integrate the results of impact energy research undertaken by Kumamoto University with Daicel’s ONE TIME ENERGY^® technology. In May 2023, we signed an agreement on comprehensive collaboration to further strengthen our partnership with the goal of enhancing our collaboration in areas such as healthcare, safety and security, convenience and comfort, and the environment. This initiative contributes to joint research leading to societal implementation, personnel development, and regional cooperation in a manner that benefits both parties as well as the local community.

In August 2017, we entered into a comprehensive partnership agreement intended to promote collaboration between industry and academia across many fields of endeavor. In 2020, we established the Joint Research Program on Friction Interface Phenomena to study these complex friction interface phenomena from both a micro (atomic and molecular scale) and macro (practical material scale) perspective. Additionally, we aim to construct theories related to the essence of these materials in order to obtain the desired characteristics required when using resins as friction components. We aim to embody the theories and elemental technologies obtained from this joint research program in order to provide lightweight, high-performance, and innovative materials that meet societal needs.

We have increased our energy efficiency by adopting DAICEL Production Innovation and Process Innovation. As part of our ongoing effort to contribute to carbon neutrality, we are leading the world in collaborating with National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and the Kanagawa Institute of Industrial Science and Technology to implement a Microfluidic Device Plant in pursuit of the ultimate in production efficiency. A microfluidic device entails a system that creates channels of several hundred micrometers on a glass substrate the size of a business card, allowing chemical operations such as mixing, reacting, and refining to be carried out on a microscale within those channels. The narrowness of the channels allows instantaneous mixing while providing excellent heat dissipation characteristics and ensuring minimal variations in temperature and concentration distribution, which can lead to impurities. This enables reactions to occur uniformly at the molecular level under homogeneous temperature and concentration conditions. The separation and recovery processes required to remove impurities thus become unnecessary, leading to significant energy savings, shortening of the manufacturing process, and improvements in product quality. By massively serializing and parallelizing microfluidic devices, along with achieving precise process control, we can facilitate mass-production using manufacturing methods developed through research. At the same time, we aim to develop a smaller, energy and resource saving, and sustainable next-generation plant that produces only what is needed, when it is needed, and in the amount needed.