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Bioplastics
As part of our efforts to fulfill our corporate social responsibilities, NEC contributes to reductions in environmental impact through research and development of new bioplastic materials created from plants.
In the past, bioplastics were fragile and had little heat resistance. Petroleum-based materials were added to improve these characteristics. But this reduced the purity of plant materials by more than half.
The highly functional bioplastics developed by NEC demonstrate dramatically improved durability and heat resistance while maintaining 90% plant purity. This was achieved by adding kenaf fibers. And in the material manufacturing process, CO2 emissions have been reduced by about 50%, compared with that for petroleum-based plastics.
Moreover, adding new functions such as flame retardancy, shape memory, and heat conductivity to bioplastics has been studied to expand their use in various products and to create new products. So these types of bioplastics are widely expected to find applications in IT products and products that require high durability. In fact, NEC plans to switch 10% of the plastics used in its electronic products to these bioplastics by 2010.
The development of bioplastics that will contribute to preventing both global warming and the depletion of petroleum resources is just one aspect of NEC's activities aimed at reducing environmental impact.
