KYOTO (Kyodo) -- A group of researchers at Ritsumeikan University, led by professor Yasuyuki Kita, said Friday they have produced a conductive polymer used in flat TVs and other products through cross coupling using iodine, rather than a rare metal, as a catalyst.
The announcement comes after Wednesday's decision by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to offer the 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry to Japan's Eiichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki, and American Richard Heck for their work on reactions to create complex organic compounds by palladium-catalyzed cross coupling.
The newly-developed tool reduces the cost of creating reactions between chemical partners as it does not use expensive rare metals, the research team said.
In addition, the nonuse of rare metals realizes reactions at ambient temperatures, it said.
Nagase Chemtex Corp., an Osaka-based chemical company, will produce conductive resins and coating materials through the iodine-based cross-coupling reactions, expecting to halve the cost of production. It plans to start selling them in the next business year.
Kita said iodine, which is low in toxicity, may replace rare metals as a catalyst for cross coupling in Japan as the country is the world's second largest producer of the chemical element after Chile.
