Today's environmental problems are difficult to be solved by conventional systems that mainly handle pollution control. The problems have been diversified, complicated, and enlarged to a global scale. Factors that cause pollution exist not only in production but also in development and design, purchase, office work, product planning, and the whole employees, so the problems should be tackled with systematic, planned, priority organizations. This paper describes our basic policy for the protection of environment, major subjects, organizations and achievements. It also outlines the organization and achievements It also outlines the organization and methods for inspecting achieved results.

Photovoltaic power generation has been expected to be one of solutions to global environmental problems. Fuji Electric has concentrated on the research, development, and sales of photovoltaic generation systems for power supply. Recently, the company has developed PVH (Photovoltaic for Home-use) conditioners with an output capacity of 3kW for photovoltaic power systems for home-uses. The PVH conditioner satisfies the technical criteria when connected to the grid, and the inverter is much smaller and lighter than before. This paper introduces its features and specifications.

Since 1989, Fuji Electric has continued developing substrate-type, planar, solid oxide fuel cells commissioned by NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization). In 1991, a 410W, 10-cell stack with an electrode area of 200?² using cermet cells and ceramic separators ran for 2,000h. In 1993, a 500?² cermet cell without ribs ran at 100W for 500h, and in addition, a 200?² cermet cell without ribs and with a Ni-Cr alloy metallic separator showed good heat cycle performance for 5 runs. Since 1994, a metallic cell with a porous Ni-Cr alloy substrate has been under development.

A polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC), having many advantages such as long life, good stability during cyclic start and stop operation, and high power density, has been attracting much attention at home and abroad. Fuji Electric carried out the system analysis of a stationary PEFC power plant and found that a PEFC system would be superior to a phosphoric acid fuel cell system in case that exhaust heat was not highly utilized. We developed 1kW and 5kW H₂-air PEFC stacks with an electrode area of 600cm², which are now undergoing various tests. In addition, we made a 4kW H₂-O₂ PEFC power source for demonstration.

In Japan, the emission of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and dust from factories and job sites is controlled by the regulation of air pollution prevention. Also carbon moNO_xide and hydrocarbons in automobile exhaust gases are under the regulation of emission. This paper introduces infrared gas analyzers (for emissions from stationary sources and for automobile exhaust gases) to measure the concentration of these gases under regulations.

Fuji Electric has developed a water quality apparatus to measure BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand), an organic pollution index in the water environment. This laboratory instrument uses a biosensor in which a microbial membrane of immobilized yeast and a membrane-type dissolved oxygen electrode are combined. We carried out the R & D through, including microbial cultivation, membrane making and apparatus production. This apparatus can finish a 5-day measurement by the conventional method within 40min. The other advantages are continuous automatic measurement, changeable automatic calibration frequency and measurable concentration as low as 2 ?/l.

Pulp moldings are preferable packing material in order to protect the environment and save resources. Recently tightened environmental regulations in the US and Europe have increased demands for them as industrial packing material. However, pulp moldings have been made through a drying process, resulting in high costs. Fuji Electric has developed an electroosmotic pulp molding machine using metal molds as electrodes for applying DC voltage. In an experiment using waste newspaper, the water content was reduced by 10% to 20% from the pressurized dewatering method, which is about 40% reduction of the drying power cost by trial calculation.

Vending machines have connections with the environment in various aspects. Major subjects are chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs, from) and energy connected to the global ozone holes and warming climates, general problems concerning recycling as also posed by other field products, and harmony with the environment specific to vending machines. This paper mainly describes measures to be taken against the specific CFCs regulations, promotion of energy saving, contents of a survey of waste disposal, and development of vending machines in harmony with the environment.

Disposal methods for plastics waste from common homes, though there is difference among municipalities, are roughly divided into incineration and reclamation. Disposal by reclamation requires taking measures for prolonging the life of reclaimed land and for preventing plastics from scattering. To solve these problems, Fuji Electric developed and put to practical use the volume reduction equipment "hot-bind system" for plastics waste using induction heating technology. This paper introduces an outline of this system and examples of delivered equipment.

Recently, a rise in the standard of living and the expansion of industrial activities have worsened living and industrial waste water quality, and environmental problems such as water pollution and a bad smell from decomposed waste water have come up. To solve the problems, a method of purifying water with air bubbles is used. Increase in bubble contact areas improves purification efficiency, so micro bubbles should be most effective; then Fuji Electric developed an air-liquid mixing pump for producing micro bubbles. This paper introduces its structure, performance, specification, features, and application examples.

Clean rooms are used widely for industrial uses such as semiconductor manufacturing, electronics, and precision machining, for biological uses such as medicines and foods, and for laboratory use in enterprises and colleges. Particularly for semiconductors, practical superclean rooms where there is only one particle with a 0.05μm diameter in the space 1ft3 have come in demand. This paper describes the latest technical trends of clean room systems and equipment for semiconductor and liquid crystal display manufacturing.

Ozonization has attracted attention in connection with the expanding ozone hole above the Antarctic and the problem of trihalomethane generated by ozonization in waterworks. Ozone itself decomposes into ordinary oxygen and products generated by ozonization have little influence on the environment because of high decomposability. This paper introduces etch regeneration, sterilization, deodorization, and decolorization systems, and the decomposition of indecomposable organic matter, as examples of ozone application systems.

Daily peak load forecasting in power systems is a very important task on which generation scheduling for the following day is based. The accurate forecast is necessary for the reliability and economical operation of power systems. This paper describes the daily peak load forecasting system which is actually used in the central dispatching center of Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc. The system integrates the neural networks and fuzzy theory efficiently and can forecast peak load accurately. The forecasting errors are below 2% for all seasons.