NGK Insulators is to invest $106 million in a Co-Creation Centre and a Carbon Neutrality (CN)-Related Product Development Area called the Atsuta site at its head office in Mizuho, Japan.

The centre will  promote open innovation and adding value with ceramic technologies. Construction is scheduled to be completed in May 2025

NGK plans to install the perovskite solar cells of EneCoat Technologies, in which NGK has invested, and will conduct demonstration testing of power generation performance.

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At the Atsuta site, a new R&D building adjoining the Co-Creation Center is currently under construction.

The new R&D building is scheduled to start operations in June 2025. Ideas developed in the Co-Creation Center will undergo evaluation and demonstration testing in the new R&D building, and the result will be reexamined in the Co-Creation Center.

NGK will reorganize part of the existing area for the development and production of ceramic products for emission control into an area for the development and prototyping of new CN-related products.

NGK is currently developing ceramic substrates for Direct Air Capture (DAC), which directly captures carbon dioxide (CO2) contained in the atmosphere.

The performance requirements of the DAC substrate have a lot in common with the performance requirements of ceramics for emission control.

Therefore, NGK is developing a substrate that will efficiently perform adsorption and desorption of CO2 by applying the ceramic honeycomb structure technology it has cultivated so far.

In parallel, NGK has started to develop technologies to coat (impregnate) CO2adsorption materials on the DAC ceramic substrate.

The DAC area started operations in November 2023. NGK will continue to strengthen the development framework by successively developing and expanding the area, with the aim of participating in demonstration testing in 2025 and establishing a mass production system in 2030.

In June 2025, NGK will develop a new development area (separation membrane area) for sub-nano ceramic membranes that contribute to technologies such as Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS), and will move forward with efforts to develop CN-related products.