Hiroshi TAODA (Chief)

E-mail.taoda@nirin.go.jp

Susumu MINATO (Senior Researcher)

E-mail.minato@nirin.go.jp

Hideharu MATSUDA (Senior Researcher)

E-mail.hmatsuda@nirin.go.jp

Kouzou ISEDA (Senior Researcher)

E-mail.iseda@nirin.go.jp

Toru NONAMI (Senior Researcher)

E-mail.nonami@nirin.go.jp

Tetsuo YAMAMOTO (Senior Researcher)

Mitsuharu FUKAYA (Senior Researcher)

E-mail.mfukaya@nirin.go.jp

Eiji WATANABE (Senior Researcher)

E-mail.watanabe@nirin.go.jp

　 In order to cope with global warming and to recycle CO2 from the atomosphere, research on CO2 reduction at high reaction rate under mild condition is being conducted using metal chalcogenide catalysts such as molybdenum sulfide and tungsten sulfide, which are inexpensive and tolerant to sulfur containing feed-streams and have no problem with respect to toxicity and the supply of resources. Molybdenum sulfide and tungsten sulfide reduce CO2 to CO through the reaction of CO2 with H2 in gas phase and CO can be converted to various useful chemicals such as formic acid, methanol and formaldehyde by utilizing the processes of C1 chemistry.

2.Water teatment using photocatalysts

　Recently, pollution of valuable water due to daily waste- water or industrial waste-water has been spreading on a global scale. The treatment of waste water using TiO2 photocatalyst is able to decompose toxic and bioresistant organic pollutants readily. In such water treatment studies, TiO2 powders in general have been utilized as photocatalyst. TiO2 film photocatalysts have several advantages:1) They are easy to treat, 2) filtration is not necessary to separate catalysts from treated water, 3) continuous treatment of waste-water is possible.

In this laboratory the development of highly active TiO2 film photocatalysts pre pared by sol-gel method and research on the destruction of bioresistant organic pollutants such as trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene in water or air using the TiO2 film photo catalysts are being performed.

　　Continuous falling of acid rain all over Japan may bring excess load of acid substances to the soil. About 67% of land is covered by trees in Japan. Dieback of the forest trees due to nitrogen oxide (NOX) and sulpher oxide (SOX) is becoming a serious problem. The process of the death of forest trees due to acid rain substances and a useful method to stop the effect are studied.

　　Basic study on natural background radiation, i.e., terrestrial gamma and cosmic radiation, has been carried out for the past 10 years. At present, the application of those are being studied to worldwide soil balance estimation and cosmic ray non-destructive testing.