Furuya Metal Becomes First Japanese Precious Metal Company To Establish JV With Anglo Platinum

Furuya Metal Co., Ltd. (Head office: Toshima-ku, Tokyo; President: Takahito Furuya) has established a new company named "Furuya Eco-Front Technology" on May 27 2020, which will handle environmental businesses that capitalize on low-temperature active catalysts (hereafter referred to as "FT-eco catalysts"), and that on July 1 it signed an agreement to form a joint venture with Anglo Platinum Marketing Limited (Head office: London, the United Kingdom, hereafter referred to as "APML"), a subsidiary of Anglo American Plc. APML, which appreciates Furuya Metal's environmental businesses, is providing 40% of the capital for the new joint venture. This is the first time a major mining company in South Africa where accounts for 70% of the global platinum production, has formed a joint venture with a Japanese precious metal company.

In 2017, Furuya Metal established a mass-production system for FT-eco catalysts that resolves volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are harmful to humans and cause allergies and offensive odors, as well as ethylene, which accelerates the decay of plants, and has been actively promoting these catalysts.

As urban areas have developed economically in China and Southeast Asian countries, as well as Japan, people are continuously flowing into these areas, which creates food safety issues and increases the need for reducing food waste and improving public hygiene. In order to reduce the food waste due to spoilage and to improve people's health by preventing odor, inhibiting molds, and taking the advantage of the antimicrobial effect, Furuya Metal has recently established a new company. Furuya Metal is aiming to consolidate its business resource related to FT-eco catalyst, expand its distribution channels further, including overseas markets, and promote technology development through a newly formed subsidiary.

About FT-eco catalysts

FT-eco catalysts are catalysts in which nanoparticles of precious metals such as platinum are carried in a special ceramic carrier. These catalysts can efficiently resolves VOCs and ethylene within a temperature range between 0 degrees and 30 degrees Celsius (room temperature) and exhibit a high level of catalytic effect when simply placed within the target space. Furthermore, since they almost never need to be replaced, cost reduction and energy saving can be expected. Therefore, it is projected that these catalysts will be utilized by makers of home appliances, such as air cleaners and refrigerators, retails stores that need to maintain the freshness of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and plants, and in logistics applications such as cold chains.

FT-eco catalysts are next-generation, energy-saving, environment-friendly catalysts that, because they work at low temperatures, can be expected to reduce energy consumption, thereby reducing CO2 emissions, and that have the potential of contributing to food waste reduction by maintaining freshness.

Furuya Metal Group specializes in PGM with particularly excellent properties among precious metals, and develops and manufactures products for a wide range of fields, including electronics, optical glass, clean energy, precious metal resource reutilization, environment, and medicine. The company was selected as one of the Global Niche Top Companies Selection 100 by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) in the program's first year (2014) and again in its second year (2020). We plans to continue capitalizing on its unique technologies to help resolve social issues.

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