Tosoh believes that the chemical industry as a whole must use its knowledge of chemistry to contribute to environmental preservation and remediation. For its part, Tosoh is heavily engaged in activities related to wastewater, groundwater, and contaminated soil purification. The Tosoh Group puts the special properties of a variety of its chemicals and other materials to work in preserving and cleaning up the environment.

The heavy metals in the fly ash emitted from garbage incinerators pose a considerable threat to the surrounding environment and to the inhabitants of nearby communities. So Tosoh has developed a chelating agent that safely traps toxic heavy metals, preventing them from being released into the environment. This product is used in fly ash processing systems at garbage incinerators throughout Japan. And we are working on new applications of this agent in soil remediation.

To clean the air we breathe, Tosoh utilizes the special properties of zeolite. We used the extensive knowledge that we gained in producing an array of synthetic zeolites to develop a practical application for zeolite in cleaning the exhaust emissions of automobiles. This product is in use in the exhaust systems of automobiles in Japan and Europe. We also have used modifying technologies to add functions that expand the applications of zeolite to purify gas exhaust at factories.

And Tosoh has applied knowledge gained in developing medical diagnostic systems to create a simple method of measuring endocrinedisrupting materials, such as estrogen, in the environment using antibodies.  These are just a few ways that Tosoh R&D is contributing to environmental protection.