News

Nihon Kagaku Sangyo Co., Ltd. (President: KADOYA Hiroki) held a ceremony on April 9 to mark the completion of the Iwaki Technology Center, a pilot plant that it had been constructing since spring 2024 in the Iwaki Yotsukura Core Industrial Park in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture. After receiving certification from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry under our plan for securing stable supplies of critical minerals , we built the plant as a technology center to help propel technological development for our advanced metals recycling business.

Tape-cutting ceremony (tentative)

Completion ceremony (President’s remarks, tentative)

Around 40 people attended the ceremony, including representatives from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security , Fukushima Prefecture, Iwaki City, local stakeholders, and Nihon Kagaku Sangyo personnel. At the ceremony, President Kadoya said, “This technology center is an extremely important technological validation base in solidifying the foundation for our advanced metals recycling business. I am confident that the technologies that we develop here will help strengthen the domestic supply chain for critical minerals. Going forward, we will continue to bring together our technological capabilities and work with partner companies to contribute to a sustainable recycling society.”

In our New Mid-Term Management Plan, which we formulated and announced in October 2023, we set out our vision for the chemicals business as we strive to contribute to a recycling society and to decarbonization by the year 2030. That vision identifies the advanced metals recycling business as one of the businesses we aspire to develop. The Iwaki Technology Center is set to play a key role as part of the growth strategy for turning that vision into reality.

We believe one of our greatest strengths lies in the synergies that emerge from combining the advanced separation and refining technologies we have developed over the years with our research and development on battery materials. At the Iwaki Technology Center, we will conduct technological validation for efficiently separating and refining nickel, cobalt, lithium, and other valuable metals found in black mass generated from the used secondary batteries of electric vehicles (EVs) and reusing those metals as EV battery materials. Through these initiatives, we will translate technological development into commercialization efforts and further accelerate business development.

Following technological validation at the Iwaki Technology Center, we will collaborate with various partners in establishing closed-loop recycling of EV batteries with a view to full-scale mass production and commercialization.

•Location: Iwaki Yotsukura Core Industrial Park, Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture
•Estimated investment: Approx. 3.1 billion yen
•Start of operations: April 2026

•Press release: Construction of Pilot Plant to Develop an Advanced Metals Recycling Business (September 26, 2024)
•Developing an Advanced Metals Recycling Business
•New Mid-Term Management Plan (October 2023)