NEC Develops Environmentally Friendly Flame Retardant Bioplastic

Tokyo, November 4, 2009 - NEC Corporation today announced the successful development and implementation of an environmentally friendly flame-retardant bioplastic, Nucycle(TM), that includes a mainly biomass-based polymer (biopolymer: polylactic acid) (*1), safe additive agents (more than 75% biomass components (plant elements) within its organic elements (*2)) and is expected to help reduce both petroleum resource exhaustion and CO2 emissions.

Primary features of the environmentally friendly bioplastic (biopolymer composite) are as follows:

1)    Botanical percentage of organic elements
•    More than 75% (petroleum component utilization: less than 25%)

2)    Life cycle CO2 emissions (calculated based on LCA(*3))
•    50% of existing PC/ABS petroleum based plastic

3)    Advanced flame retardance free from halogenated flame retardant
•    UL Standard V-0 (1.8 mm thickness) and a variety of practical applications achieved without the use of halogenated flame retardant or toxic materials

NEC plans to offer business PCs that have adopted the bioplastics within 2010.

Furthermore, the NEC Group’s environmentally conscious “ECO Symbol Star products (*4)” will also adopt products that use the bioplastic materials.

Technological features of NEC’s flame retardant bioplastic, developed in cooperation with Kao Corporation (TSE: 4452), are as follows.

1) Original Flame Retardant Technologies (primarily developed by NEC)
Flame retardant technologies for polylactic acid were developed without using halogen or such materials that cause environmental concern. Development took place through a combination of flame-retarding additives (newly developed) that accelerate the formation of foam when ignited (strengthened resin surface) and a specific aluminum hydroxide heat absorbing agent (developed in 2004), which is a safe ingredient commonly found in soil. This development has enabled a high standard (UL-V0) for electronic equipment fire prevention to be achieved.

2) Moldability Improvement Technologies (primarily developed by Kao)
Development of a crystallization accelerant for polylactic acid. The crystallization of polylactic acid can be realized in 20 seconds at 80 degrees Celsius and molding time has been reduced.

3) Compounding and Dispersion Technologies for Additive Agents (developed by NEC and Kao)
Technologies were developed that further increase the affinity of the additive agents (aluminum hydroxide, etc.) for polylactic acid and uniformly disperse the additive agents within the polymer matrix by reforming the additive agents’ surfaces and using high dispersion techniques. These methods significantly improved the effectiveness of each additive agent, which reduced the overall volume of required additive agents and improved flame resistance, in addition to a variety of peripheral characteristics.

Looking forward, in addition to its current development of bioplastics that rely primarily on cereals used for animal feed, NEC will actively drive the development of new bioplastics that capitalize on non-edible raw materials (cellulose, etc.).

In recent years, as a measure to prevent global warming and petroleum resource exhaustion, a great deal of attention has been directed towards bioplastics that use reproducible biomass-based material. Inside of this trend, bioplastics, especially composites with polylactic acid (a representative mass-produced biopolymer), are increasingly used in daily products, including fibers and utensils, and such durable products as electronics equipment and automobiles. However, in order for bioplastics to be widely used in the manufacturing of PCs and other such advanced electronics equipment, it is necessary to develop and use further advanced bioplastics that are highly flame retardant, durable and maintain a high level of moldability.

Until now, in order to meet these particular characteristics, flame retardant bioplastics have included petroleum-derived polymers (polycarbonates, etc.) as their primary ingredients (approximately 70%). Since such large amounts of petroleum feedstock resins were mixed with polylactic acid (biomass ratio: nearly 100%), the biomass ratio of these bioplastics significantly dropped (about 30%) and the CO2 emission throughout the life cycle increased when compared with unmixed polylactic acid.

NEC has capitalized on new developments to adopt polylactic acid as a primary ingredient and used original compounding technologies to mix it with specialized additive agents that provide a high level of safety. This has enabled the creation of a new bioplastic (the polylactic acid composite) that can be used in electronics equipment while maintaining a top level biomass-ratio and significantly reducing the level of CO2 emissions throughout its life cycle.

The development and implementation of this flame retardant polylactic acid composite has enabled the first time creation of materials that demonstrate the coexisting characteristics of environmental friendliness, flame retardance, heat resistance, moldability (liquidity, molding time), shock resistance and more.

(*1) A biopolymer that may be used for sections of electronic equipment and whose mass production is at the most advanced stage, but the strengthening of its flame retardance, heat resistance, moldability and other properties pose significant challenges.

(*2) NEC bioplastic standard: A plastic that uses more than 75% biomass (plant based material) within its organic material (resin and organic additive agents).

(*3) Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): LCA is calculated and evaluated based on assumed CO2 emissions when energy is taken from thermally generated power to produce plastic composites from raw materials and to mold the composite into products such as housings.

(*4) NEC’s "ECO Symbol Star System" promotes the development of environmentally oriented top-runner ECO products. The system is positioned at the upper level of the conventional ECO Symbol System and assigns an "ECO Symbol Star" to the products that satisfy the qualification standards as top-runners within NEC and the industry (http://www.nec.co.jp/eco/en/product/eco_toprunner/).

About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation is one of the world's leading providers of Internet, broadband network and enterprise business solutions dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of a diversified global base of customers. NEC delivers tailored solutions in the key fields of computer, networking and electron devices, by integrating its technical strengths in IT and Networks, and by providing advanced semiconductor solutions through NEC Electronics Corporation. The NEC Group employs more than 140,000 people worldwide. For additional information, please visit the NEC website at: http://www.nec.com.

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