Nippon Shokubai Co., Ltd.

Takeo Akatsuka

Tomoharu Oku

Masanori Nonoguchi

Hideaki Tsuneki

Toshimitsu Moriguchi

Hironobu Ono

Izuho Okada

Hiroko Izumi

Atsushi Tachibana

Mikio Koyano

Tomoyuki Yao

Hironori Horie

Shinya Maenosono

A thermoelectric material of the present invention includes copper, tin, and sulfur, wherein a ratio A/B of the number A of copper atoms to the number B of tin atoms is 0.5 to 2.5 and a content of a metal element other than copper and tin is 5 mol % or less with respect to total metal elements. Additionally, the thermoelectric material of the present invention has a thermal conductivity less than 1.0 W/(m&#xb7;K) at 200 to 400&#xb0; C.

Thermoelectric material, thermoelectric device, powder for thermoelectric material, and method for producing thermoelectric material

An object of the present invention is to provide zirconium oxide nanoparticles that have excellent dispersibility in a polar solvent and are capable of increasing a core concentration in a dispersion liquid. Zirconium oxide nanoparticles according to the present invention are coated with at least one compound selected from the group consisting of R&#x2014;COOH, (RO)&#x2014;P(O)&#x2014;(OH), (R)&#x2014;P(O)&#x2014;(OH), (RO)&#x2014;S(O)(O)&#x2014;(OH), R&#x2014;S(O)(O)&#x2014;(OH), and (R)&#x2014;Si(R), wherein Rrepresents a group comprising a carbon atom and at least one element selected from the group consisting of an oxygen atom, a nitrogen atom, and a sulfur atom, and having the total number of carbon atoms, oxygen atoms, nitrogen atoms, and sulfur atoms of 8 or less; Rrepresents a halogen atom or &#x2014;OR, and Rrepresents a hydrogen atom or an alkyl group; and n represents 1 or 2, and m represents an integer of 1 to 3.

Zirconium oxide nanoparticles

The present invention has an object to provide the following method for producing fatty acid alkyl esters and/or glycerin and the following catalyst used in the production method. According to the production method, a fat or oil is reacted with an alcohol to give a fatty acid alkyl ester and/or glycerin suitably used in a food or fuel application, etc., with high efficiency, and complicated steps such as a step of recovering a catalyst can be simplified or omitted. According to the catalyst, an active metal component is not eluted even if the catalyst is used repeatedly or for a long period of time, and further, such a catalyst can maintain an excellent catalyst activity for a long time even in the presence of water and exhibit a high activity to both of transesterification of a glyceride contained in the fat or oil and esterification of free fatty acid. In addition, the catalyst can exhibit a high catalyst activity even in the presence of an impurity such as a free fatty acid (FFA) contained in the fat or oil. The present invention is a method for producing fatty acid alkyl esters and/or glycerin including a step of bringing a fat or oil into contact with an alcohol in the presence of a catalyst, wherein the catalyst includes a manganese element and a trivalent metal element.

Method for producing fatty acid alkyl esters and/or glycerin using fat or oil

In the method of the present invention for producing fatty acid alkyl ester and/or glycerin, as a heat source for an alcohol refining step of refining alcohol from unreacted alcohol that remains without reacting in a first reaction step, at least a part of heat of the unreacted alcohol is used. This allows reducing costs in production of fatty acid alkyl ester and/or glycerin over a solid catalyst.

Method for producing fatty acid alkyl ester and/or glycerin

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Hyogo, Japan

Takeo Akatsuka