Novel environmentally-friendly inorganic pigments are highly desirable for global environmental conservation. However, development of such pigments with high color hue as well as reliable thermal and chemical stabilities is a hard task without using heavy metals. To obtain a high color hue without toxic heavy metals, it is essential to select a unique crystal structure and constituent elements. Here, we introduce our recent research on environmentally friendly yellow or orange inorganic pigments based on chemically stable oxides, which were selected by consideration of knowledge from studies on ion conducting materials.

In general, CICP (Complex Inorganic Color Pigment) Blue is made by Cobalt as main raw material. This new blue pigment, based on the elements Yttrium, Indium and Manganese produces a brilliant color. Moreover, it has high reflection in not only blue region but also near infrared region.

In this paper, we introduce the characteristics of physical properties, data of infrared reflectance and weatherability etc..

In this review, accurate prediction methods on color characteristics of organic colorants by quantum chemical calculation are presented.

The feature of Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory (TD-DFT) which is the most widely-used theoretical approach is compared to other quantum chemical methods. We show the computation conditions (density functionals, basis sets, and solvent effects) to provide accurate results for several type of colorants and quantum chemical properties. We also show how to select calculation conditions to provide accurate results in reference to the benchmark. Finally, important points when introducing quantum chemical calculation software are discussed.

We have characterized the dispersion state of photoresist particles and their adsorption/desorption behavior onto an ITO substrate in a mixture of ethylene carbonate (EC) and propylene carbonate (PC). We have also demonstrated the effect of addition of Pluronic surfactant (F-68) on the dispersion state and the adsorption/desorption behavior of the photoresist particles. The addition of water in the EC/PC mixed solvent caused the aggregation of the photoresist particles, whereas the dispersion samples were visually transparent under the coaddition of F-68. This indicates that F-68 adsorbs on the photoresist particles and improves the dispersion state of the photoresist particles in the presence of water. Quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) measurements demonstrated that the residual amount of photoresist particles on the ITO surface after rinsing by the solvent significantly increased with increasing water concentration in the EC/PC mixed solvent without F-68. In contrast, the residual amount decreased in the mixture of EC/PC and water with F-68, suggesting that the poly(ethylene oxide) chains of F-68 adsorbed on the ITO and photoresist surfaces prevent the particles from their adsorption as a result of the steric effect in the mixed solvent.

Steels are considered to be one of the most promising materials for weight saving of auto-bodies for the improvement of fuel consumption and lower CO₂ emissions, according to the Life Cycle Assessment analyses throughout the life of vehicles from materials manufacturing to their recycling. Since crashworthiness is also required to be improved, high strength steels with appropriate mechanical properties are desired. Various types of advanced high strength steels are introduced with explanations of strengthening methodologies and relationships between mechanical responses and the microstructures of the steels.