Ricoh Develops World's First Biomass Carbon Powder for Environmental Protection

Sustainable development has a bearing on the survival and development of the entire society. Ricoh believes that the company must be responsible for all the raw materials used in the product. Ricoh focuses on the following two aspects: reducing the amount of natural resources that are exploited and seeking alternatives for depleted resources. For this reason, Ricoh actively changes the raw materials used in the products, converts them from non-renewable petroleum resources into renewable biomass materials, and recycles used products. Bioplastics have already been applied to some of Ricoh's products.

Recently, as a manufacturer of production consumables, Ricoh has developed the world's first (*) biomass toner, which has been used in the latest machines released in the Japanese market. About 80% of the traditional toner is based on petroleum resin. However, Ricoh’s newly developed forEtoner (environmentally friendly toner), which includes resin materials, accounts for 25% of the total.

The use of bio-carbon powder will help reduce the environmental impact of the following two aspects:

1) It can suppress the release of carbon dioxide due to the burning of carbon powder on used paper

(Including the separation of carbon and paper during paper recycling)

2) Reduce the use of oil resources that are about to be depleted

Ricoh applied biomass carbon powder earlier in the actual product. We hope to continuously improve the process and technology of biomass carbon powder with the goal of protecting the environment.

(*) To date, Ricoh is the world's first manufacturer to use biomass materials to produce consumables.