Office best suitable for biological clock

Takenaka Corp., one of Japan’s leading construction companies, has developed an office that minimizes the error of the biological clock that controls the cycle of brain activation. The office controls Takenaka’s self-developed intensity of illumination and room temperature, sets the biological clock of office workers, and helps them have a deep sleep. The company plans to commercialize this office in three years as the technology to improve the productivity of office workers liable to have an irregular working pattern. Focusing attention on the circadian rhythm, it developed the technology to select the intensity of illumination and control the operation of air-conditioning in accordance with the circadian rhythm.

Takenaka adopted two kinds of LEDs of orange and white. The office uses the two colors, but orange grows stronger toward the evening. It is 400 lx in the day time and less than 300 lx after the evening. The illumination is covered by film after the evening to integrate it with the ceiling, and the film makes the whole ceiling brighter by diffusing the light coming out through the film. The system sets the temperature of the air-conditioning at 3 degrees centigrade higher than the room temperature to increase the deep body temperature, thereby enlarges the vibration amplitude subject to the circadian rhythm. This technology helps office workers have a good sleep and improve their rhythm of sleep and waking state.

Hitachi Zosen goes into the large-scale fuel cell business.

Hitachi Zosen announced that it would go into the large-scale fuel cell business toward 2014 in alliance with Wartsila of Finland. The large-scale fuel cell to be built by the two companies will have power generation efficiency of 50-70% that is about two times as high as that of the existing model and sold to manufacturing plants and buildings. The company is scheduled to launch the testing machine of the state-of-the-art fuel cell called solid-oxide fuel cell within the year. It changed the substance used in generation part from polymer molecule to solid ceramic, and it is expected to increase the power generation efficiency to 50-70% and output of power generation by 10 times. The two companies will collaborate in product development and substantiative experiments. Fuel cells do not emit carbon dioxide, but the high generation cost should be solved to spread fuel cells. According to a survey, the current domestic solid-oxide fuel cell market is about 800 million yen, but it will be 250 billion yen in 2025.

Carbon fiber material for auto body

Tokyo University successfully developed a carbon fiber material for auto body jointly with Toray, Toyobo, and Mitsubishi Rayon. The newly-developed material has 10 times as much strength as iron and weighs one fourth of iron. It can be moulded in a short time, and it allows for deformation and agglutination. It can be applied to various part of a car including auto body and engine parts. The university will collaborate with Toyota, Nissan, and Honda to establish the mass production technology of this material. To develop this material, the university used carbon fiber and thermoplastic resin to solidify it and improved the surface of carbon fiber to make it become easily attached to resin. It took this new material only two minutes to be processed after it is moulded in a mold. If the processing is automated, it is supposedly possible to process this material in one minute that is the time used to produce a metal part of mass-produced cars. It will offer a wide range of applications including door frame and engine parts. In addition, it can be applied to other industries than the auto industry because you can purchase a block of this material and process it to build favorable shapes.