Chemical Substance Management at Factories

Panasonic Ecology Systems (Thailand) Co., Ltd. manufactures finished products, such as electric fans, exhaust fans, and air blowers, as well as motors for such products. In a motor production process, varnish containing volatile organic solvents was used to insulate and fix the coils. However, changing from an insertion method to series winding method has successfully eliminated the varnishing process, resulting in a reduction in atmospheric release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by approximately 3.8 tons annually. At the same time, the company reduced its annual CO₂ emissions by about 40 tons, and is aiming to completely abandon the varnishing process in the future.

Device Company Kumamoto of Panasonic Communications Co., Ltd. produces optical components for optical disc drives, such as optical pickups. Production has grown each year, and the estimated production for this year will be four times that of three years ago. In light of this, reducing cleansing solvents has become an issue. The company placed a reduction priority on the cleaning equipment that uses the most solvents, and upgraded such equipment to curb the atmospheric release of VOCs.

Jigs used in manufacturing processes and products themselves are regularly cleaned with specialist equipment. The factory replaced seven separate chillers that form part of the cleaning equipment with a centralized chiller to enable proper control of cooling temperatures. Software for controlling the opening of the cleaning tanks to limit release of solvents has also been upgraded.
Further, an air intake was installed to control incoming air flow from the bottom of the cleaning equipment to minimize emission of solvents. These efforts brought about a reduction of annual solvent use from 25 tons to 20 tons.

The Lighting Company's Okayama Factory produces household fluorescent lamps and bulb-shaped fluorescent lamps, as well as fluorescent lamps for LCD backlights and white LED light sources.

Fluorescent lamps consist of glass, a protective coating, and fluorescent material. The protective coating has the effect of controlling the sodium which can separate out from the glass and reduce the brightness.

Most of the chemical substances used at the Okayama Factory are solvents contained in the protective coatings and fluorescent materials. Therefore, a switchover to water-soluble solvents for protective coats was necessary to reduce the use of VOCs. In order to use water-soluble protective coats, it is important to secure ample drying time. The factory successfully eliminated the solvents previously needed for the protective coatings by securing optimal conditions in the coating process. Thanks to these efforts, the introduction of water-soluble protective coats has enabled the factory to reduce its atmospheric release of 0.82 tons to zero, and at the same time, achieve an improvement in product performance.