Environmental equipment technologies are outlined chapter by chapter; moreover, those technologies at which manufacturers are especially good, are described field by field. You are requested, therefore, to refer to them as needed.

R&D Investments

Each member company's research and development has been pushed forward independently or in collaboration with public research institutes and has made very big contributions to the practical utilization of new environmental equipment technologies.

According to the statistics compiled by the Japan Society of Industrial Machinery Manufacturers, the total investment in research and development made by 131 companies is about 38 billion yen. Fig. 2-1 shows the transition of the research and development expenses for the years 1980 to 1999. The research and development expenses are broken down into about 4.9 billion yen for air pollution control, about 13.3 billion yen for water pollution control, about 19.7 billion yen for refuse disposal, and about 100 million yen for noise and vibration control, showing a slight increase over the previous year.

The percentage by field, taken up by the research and development expenses relative to the sales of environment-related equipment is 2.9% for air pollution control equipment (1.8% in 1998), 1.8% for water pollution control equipment (1.7% in 1998), 2.9% for refuse disposal equipment (3.4% in 1998), and 2.1% for noise and vibration control equipment (3.0% in 1998).

A comparison of researchers by field shows that 257 researchers (256 in 1998) dealt with air pollution control equipment, 684 (657 in 1998) with water pollution control equipment, 624 (592 in 1998) with refuse disposal equipment, and 22 (24 in 1998) with noise and vibration control equipment. The 131 companies surveyed had a grand total of 1,587 researchers (an increase of 3.8% or 58 researchers as compared with the previous year).

High-tech and Environmental Equipment Technologies

Technological innovations based on high technology, such as new materials, mechatronics, and biotechnology, have been accelerating the appearance of rapidly growing industries. On the other hand, innovative environmental equipment technologies have also been put to practical use due to changes in industrial structure, changes in national needs, international division of labor, and so on.

(1) New Materials
Development of new materials, such as fine ceramics, composite materials, and high-molecular functional materials, has accelerated the resources savings, energy savings, and miniaturization in equipment for recovery of valuables and circulation recycling while improving the efficiency of treatment of contaminants, pollutants, wastes, etc. As an example, separation membranes made of various new materials may be considered. In addition, great hopes for the improvement of efficiency in adsorption performance based on the development of catalysts, development of new resins, etc. are placed on new materials.

(2) Mechatronics
Rapid development of mechatronics in the 1980s made highly accurate control possible, and since then, the adoption of mechatronics has been pushed forward in environmental equipment in general. The adoption of mechatronics has brought about the following.

(a) Energy savings, automation, and miniaturization for equipment
(b) Control technologies in the process of treating and disposing of contaminants, waste, etc.
(c) Improvement of maintenance and control efficiency based on centralized control
(d) Upgrading of a variety of sensor-application technologies

(3) Biotechnology
Biological treatment has been applied widely for many years, and it is an important technology among the water pollution control technologies. With separation membranes and biotechnology combined in this field, research and development was conducted to try to bring about a complete change of the conventional treatment system, and as a result, practical utilization of equipment has been made possible. In addition, recovery of soil contaminated with oil, etc. through the use of microorganisms has also been put to practical use.

Fig. 2-1 Changes of the Research and Development Costs for Environmental Equipment