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MU Static Mixing Technologies MU Static Spiral Perforated Wings R R c 2014 MU Co., Ltd. Distributor: Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun Publisher: Nikkan Kogyo Publishing Production These papers appeared as a three-part series in the September(Part1), October(Part2), November(Part3) 2014 issues of Engineering Materials. MU Company Limited MU-SSPW

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MU Static Mixing TechnologiesMU Static Spiral Perforated Wings

R

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c 2014 MU Co., Ltd.

Distributor: Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun

Publisher: Nikkan Kogyo Publishing Production

These papers appeared as a three-part series in the September(Part1),

October(Part2), November(Part3) 2014 issues of Engineering Materials.

MU Company Limited

MU-SSPW

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The Maya Ruins and the Path to Technological Innovation

Hisao Kojima Member of the American Chemical Society President & CEO MU Company Ltd.

Famed for its 365.2420-day calendar, hieroglyph for zero, and base 20 number system, Mayan civilization once formed flourishing city-states in the dense jungles of the Yucatán Peninsula.

Some 30 years ago while staying in Mexico City, I wandered the Mayan ruins of Palenque, Copán, Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, Tikal, and Tulum.

Sitting amid the stonewalled palaces surrounded by thick vegetation, all I could hear was the chorus of the birds and insects of the forest.

While various theories have been advanced for the demise of the Maya, my own view is that it was a case of internal collapse brought on by water and food shortages, insufficient sewage treatment capacity due to a dependence on natural decomposition, and self-propagation of the bacteria in sewage beyond the capacity for natural purification.

In 1970, Kenics of the United States developed the word’s first commercial motionless mixer, which was marketed as the “Static Mixer.” In this, a fluid was mixed and agitated by a process of continuous division, rotation, confluence, and reversion in a tube that was repeated 2 to the nth power number of times.

Our motionless mixer, called the MU Mixer®, increases the number of times that the fluid is divided to at least 6 to the nth power, and is equipped with perforated spiral

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blades in order to deliver greater mixing efficiency and eliminate the need for maintenance.

We are presently developing commercial environmental systems that incorporate MU Mixers. One such is the MU Scrubber, a wet flue gas treatment system inspired by the sight of the great waterfall worshipped at the Shinto shrine of Kumano Nachi Taisha in southern Honshu.

The white torrent of a waterfall illustrates how the MU Mixers in our scrubber work. The main stream in a waterfall flows straight down the surface of the rocks under the influence of gravity, and it absorbs air from the atmosphere and is broken into smaller and smaller droplets as its potential energy is converted into kinetic energy. On the periphery of the fall, meanwhile, moss and vegetation grow amid the more gently flowing water.

Likewise in the MU Scrubber, gas and liquid flow downward in parallel flows. No flooding, channeling, or clogging caused by dust or crystallization occurs, allowing the system to be operated continuously and free of maintenance for long periods. Gas can be cooled and absorbed, and dust removed, all by the one system.

Viewed from the shoreline, the deep blue sea appears like some fantastical artist and the raging waves its brush, painting rippling strokes on the white canvas of the sandy beach and rocks.

Pulsed energy causes oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to be absorbed into the sea and volatile substances to be desorbed from it. This is an example of mass transfer from gas to liquid and from liquid to gas through gas-liquid contact. Now consider the gas-liquid contact that occurs when a MU Mixer is placed on rocks or a sandy beach.

That is the principle behind our MU Green Reactor and MU Reactor and MU Aerator desorption and aeration treatment systems.

Imagine a fountain soaring into the air in defiance of gravity like a church spire.

How far the water droplets formed can climb depends on their velocity and size, and is determined by the terminal velocity where the rising velocity and falling velocity are equal. Droplet size is predictable by Newtonian mechanics.

Working on this Newtonian basis, if a MU Mixer is placed over a fountain, the fine mist and dust particles mixed in with the fountain gain in size and water content, enabling

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them to be captured. This line of thinking is what gave rise to the MU Separator, our new device for separating gas from liquid.

Technological innovation depends on observation, skepticism, maturity, intuition, revelation, gratitude, and continuity.

As engineers, we are committed to innovating new and better technologies for distillation, ballast water treatment, CO2 absorption, and other applications, guided by a vision of reaching higher and further and an awareness that huge things may be hidden by their very immensity. Mindful of the collapse of the Maya, we stand on the periphery of today’s IT civilization, so like the evolution of life (dynamic equilibrium) from mitochondria formed by double-helical DNA, working to ensure that the densely packed mysteries of the integrated circuit do not suffer the same fate.

Standing alone between heaven and earth, the ruins whisper much to us. Through the seasons, the changes of nature teach us, as we walk watchfully, in Heidegger’s words, “off the beaten track,” (Der Feldweg) that time is a treasure chest of glittering moments. Life is to be lived quietly yet poetically, for simplicity is inconspicuous, preferring to remain on the gateless margins.

One drop descending the surface of a ruin

Into the abundant depths of a clear sea of beauty,

Delving the fossil past in search of the one cosmos.

How still it is!

Stinging into the stones,

The locusts’ trill.

Matsuo Basho, translated by Donald Keene

Source: Donald Keene, World Within Walls: Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era, 1600-1867, New York, 1999, p. 89

This is a partially revised version of an article published as the foreword to the July 2008 edition of

Plant and Process.

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A Confluence of µ (“Mu”) and Mu (“Nothingness”)

Thrusting the spotlessly clear Western conception of

time and space symbolized by the Leaning Tower of Pisa

into the Japanese conception of infinite time and space

symbolized by a Zen garden forms a synthesis from

which emerge completely new technologies and ways of

thinking. Multilayered like some kind of Russian doll,

these technologies possess a supple, multidimensional energy like a spiral or helix.

The “MU” in our corporate name derives from both the

letter µ, i.e., the twelfth letter of the ancient Greek

alphabet, and the word Mu, which represents the concept

of the cosmos in Buddhism. It embodies a philosophy

that blends the scientific wisdom obtained through the

pursuit of truth of Western philosophy with a profound

intuition derived from the Japanese view of nature and Oriental Zen to generate new technologies.

MU Company Ltd.

Newtonian Abstraction MU Mixing Element

DNA Abstraction New Generation MU Mixing Element

© MU Co., Ltd., 2010

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COMPILATION OF ADVERTISEMENTS ON“MU REACTOR” IN THE “nature”

(November, 1998 to March 1999)

hguorht 8991 rebmevoN morf ”erutan“ eht ni semit 5 deraeppa,”ROTCAER UM “ no stnemesitrevda ruOto March, 1999, have been complied into one booklet for our customers to enjoy these pictures.

deripsni gnieb ,tnempiuqe tnemtaert retaw euqinu , ” ROTCAER UM“ detnevni sah .dtL YNAPMOC UMby the scenery of water falling down from the cliffs. With this idea in mind, the series of our advertisement in the“nature” is meant to convey our message to our customers that our technologies have been credited to varioushints Nature has given us, in the similar manners as most of epock-making great inventions in the history havingbeing made with the help of various natural phenomena these inventors would have seen.With enthusiasm for preservation of global environment, MU COMPANY Ltd. is going to take a first tiny but

steady step towards cleaning up our earth armed with our own technology.dluow ”seiromem lanrete fo elcitrap yratnemele“ ruoy ,telkoob siht hguorht ,fi ,erusaelp tsomtu ruo si tI

interact with your sensitivity, leading you to a splendid world of Poetic Meditation.

September, 1999 Shunsuke SawadaPresidentYokoh&Co., Ltd.

Hisao KojimaPresidentMu Company Limited

November,1998 December,1998 January,1999

March,1999February,1999