Our company offers a diverse range of products and services that cater to various industries, such as printing equipment, optical devices, data storage, and semiconductor materials. Specifically, we provide high-quality Fujifilm products that are designed to meet the needs and demands of our customers in these industries.
Innovation is a key factor in the printing industry. Truyol, one of Spain’s largest printing businesses, has internalized this principle and focuses on growing and improving their services with great success. To make sure that this focus can be upheld, they need a powerful and innovative partner on their side – Fujifilm has shown that we can be this partner. Discover how Truyol uses the Jet Press 750 S to set new industry standards with its high production capability and superior quality. Click here fore more.
Find out how the Fujifilm Acuity B1 UV inkjet printer has paved the way for a new partnership with metal packaging firm Tinmasters in south Wales. The article shows how the printer works for them and how Fujifilm and Tinmasters collaborate to innovate the metal printing technology – a fruitful collaboration for the metal industry as well as the printing industry. Find out more here.
Printing never stops but unusual times require extraordinary approaches. FUJIFILM supports its partners in the local onsite printing business. Spread the news, let your customer know you are still open to receive orders. Engage on social platforms. Be creative. Join the community. #letthemknow #neverstopprinting
In these difficult times, many of us are looking for ways to help out our friends and neighbors who own and work in small businesses. We can’t forget the local photo retailers whom we’ve relied on to print our most cherished memories over the years. A lot of these shops are closed to customers during lockdown, their printers sitting idle. It doesn’t have to be this way.
We still need our photos printed, now more than ever. What better way to cope with the isolation that lockdown can bring than to share our lives with the people we care about?
We want to send postcards to friends to tell them how we’re doing. We want to make scrapbooks to relive our old memories, and hold onto the new ones that we’re making in these times. We want to break out of our boredom and have fun with prints on social media, sharing laughs and camaraderie with friends around the world because we’re all in this together. And please, give us something nice to hang on our walls, because we’re staring at them more than ever now.
These unusual times require extraordinary approaches. As a photo retailer, you can’t just wait for people to walk through your door. You must go to them. But how can you do this when the entire landscape has shifted so radically?
People can still send their images to you so that they can be printed. You don’t need a dedicated system to make things work in this new, thankfully temporary age. You can use email, SMS, or WhatsApp to transfer photos. Just figure out the payment option that works best for you and your customers, whether it’s bank transfers, PayPal, or something else. Then you can mail prints back to your friends and neighbors at home. Let them hold their memories and support you as a local business.
Your friends at Fujifilm want to help you, too. Let’s all work together as a community to remind the world that photo printing is both needed and available. Hundreds of thousands of people are already showing their support for their local businesses through social media and hashtags. Join them.
For information on how to join the global community of local photo retailers, contact your local FUJIFILM partner.
Fujifilm’s polymer engineering expertise made it a market leader in applying thin layers on top of each other to produce a fantastic result: a photographic image. But the company’s expertise today extends far beyond the boundaries of photography. Fujifilm’s technologies can be found in many different industries, from pharmaceuticals and chemicals to power generation. One of them, membrane technology, makes the selective separation of even the finest components in water or gas possible.
The membranes
Ion exchange membrane: there’s a lot more to these wafer-thin membranes than you might think at first glance.
The membranes at the core of this technology are ultrathin sheets developed for different applications that only allow certain particles to pass through them. For example, e-separation technology is based on the principle of an electric field and Coulomb’s law. That’s the law about oppositely charged particles attracting each other and equally charged particles repelling each other. Different membranes are used for e-separation applications which allow either all or only certain particles to pass through depending on the desired result. The membranes used to separate gases operate according to a different principle. Instead of an electric field, they use pressure difference to move molecules through the membranes.
That gives you an outline of how membranes work. Now let’s see how they’re used in practice.
Energy from water
Fujifilm’s Electro-Separation Technology can be used to obtain “blue energy” by exploiting hydropower, but not using a water wheel.
This process is somewhat more complex. Let’s take a look at how it works…
Reverse Electrodialysis (RED) works according to the reversed principle of electrodialysis, using the difference in salinity between saltwater and freshwater to generate energy. Under the influence of an electrical field, the fresh water and salt water try to balance out the ionic charge, creating a field of voltage which can be used to generate energy.
Blue Energy in the Netherlands: relatively small, but very effective at generating renewable energy.
In a RED device, several hundred of ion exchange membrane pairs are stacked together with electrodes at both ends of the membrane stack. When fresh and saltwater is added to the cells – the space between a membrane pair – in an alternate matter, the ions in the water tend to move through the selective membranes to compensate the salinity difference. The selective movement of ions through the membranes create a voltage across the membrane stack as soon as an electrical loop is applied.
The amount of energy gained depends on several factors:
salt concentration of the first stream
salt concentration of the second stream
temperature of both stream
flow rate of both streams
Let’s take the “Afsluitdijk” in the Netherlands as an example, where water from the Waddensea meets fresh water from the IJjsselmeer at a disposal rate of, 200 m3/second. The salt concentration ratio of these two bodies of water is 18.8 : 0.35, allowing Fujifilm’s ion exchange membranes to generate around 45 MW of power, which is enough to supply approximately 115,000 households with blue Energy without the emission of greenhouse gasses. Unlike other alternative energy sources such as solar and wind this energy source is constantly available and does not require facilities for energy storage.
Blue Energy pilot plant with an outlined capacity of 50kW at The Afsluitdijk in the Netherlands where salt water from the Waddensea meets fresh water from the IJjsselmeer.
Gas separation
Production and testing of gas separation membranes.
As mentioned earlier, Fujifilm’s membrane technology can be used for a range of applications outside the water sector. Specially developed gas separation membranes are used in the oil and gas production sector to remove certain components of the gases as they are extracted so that when the gas is used to generate energy, it releases fewer pollutants into the atmosphere, reducing negative impacts on both people and the environment.
The natural gas that is transported via special pipelines from the gas field to the consumer has to comply with certain regulations. For example, there is a limit on the amount of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2) content that the gas can have to protect both consumers and pipelines. These undesirable components of the gas mix impair its heating performance and accelerate the pipeline corrosion process.
Whereas Reverse Electrodialysis (RED) uses an electric field to separate ions, the gas separation process uses pressure difference to separate gases. The pressure forces the small-sized molecules of hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide through the membrane, leaving the larger methane molecules behind because they are too large to penetrate the thin layers. The spiral wound, multi-layered membranes are designed to withstand high pressure and, at the same time, filter out CO2, H2S and H2O, leaving the methane behind.
Function
A gas separation module. Gas flows through this unit from left to right, filtering out CO2, H2S and H2O.
The gas mix flows into the membrane unit from one side. By exerting pressure, small molecules are caused to penetrate the multi-layer membrane transversely, while the remaining methane constantly follows the stream and flows out of the membrane unit into the next unit, where the process is repeated to remove the remaining CO2 residues from the gas. The membrane units are quick and simple to assemble and dismantle, so they can easily be moved to new oil and gas production areas. The ecological aspect hasn’t been neglected either, despite the fact that crude oil and natural gas production is sometimes viewed as harmful to the environment, because Fujifilm’s gas separation membranes create a safer and chemical-free process that releases less methane and CO2.
Drinking water treatment
Electro-separation technology and the ion exchange membranes are also used for other applications, one of which is the treatment of contaminated groundwater to remove nitrates, bromides, fluorides and other harmful substances to produce potable water. Electrodialysis Reversal (EDR) is based on the same principle as Reverse Electrodialysis (RED), which is used to generate blue Energy. The difference is that that a DC voltage field is applied and there is only one feed water stream flowing evenly through all cells from one side. The electric field generated by the electrodes ensures that positively charged ions (cations) and negatively charged ions (anions) pass through the membranes. This separates the contaminants (concentrate) and the potable water (diluate) alternately into different cells and they ultimately flow out of the stack separately from each other.
Population growth
Human population growth is driving agricultural food production and livestock population growth, which in turn is leading to an increase in fertilizer use and animal manure volumes. Those fertilizers and the ammonia from the manure are slowly but steadily seeping into our groundwater as nitrates. Fujifilm’s membrane technology solves this in two ways. Firstly, it removes ammonia (NH4+) from the liquid manure at the farms to prevent groundwater contamination. And, secondly, it removes the nitrates from contaminated groundwater so that it can be used as a potable water supply again.
A world leader in optic technology, Fujifilm has been building cameras since the 1940s. Today, our Fujinon lenses are used in medical equipment, satellites and high-end filming devices, as well as countless additional products.
While Fujifilm is well-known for analogue photography, we’ve made major strides into the digital realm, and our flagship cameras include the X-Pro2, X-T2 and the recently released GFX 50S. Known for their strength and durability as well as their unmatched photo quality, these models are all assembled in our Taiwa factory in Sendai, Japan. Here’s how.
Made in Japan
A sign of quality, craftsmanship and reliability, we proudly etch “Made in Japan” onto all of our flagship models like the Fujifilm GFX 50S, X-T2 and X-Pro2. Among other products, the X100F, X-T2 and X-Pro2 all undergo final assembly in our Taiwa plant about 20 miles outside of Sendai, the largest city in Japan’s Tohoku region, roughly 370 kilometres northeast of Tokyo.
From Raw to Refined
Our optics division is also the only company in the industry that handles every step of the production process, from raw materials to finished product. Fujifilm Optics Co. has three more factories in Japan that mould glass, process barrels and polish lenses.
Handmade with Care
As our visitors can attest, very little automation occurs in our Taiwa facility. Skilled workers carefully assemble and test every lens, barrel and finished camera, ensuring the highest degree of precision and craftsmanship. One lens may take several hours to produce, and the production process includes at least seven different tests and inspections. Even our more hazardous, automated processes are watched over by skilled workers and managers.
That level of handiwork also requires exquisite attention to detail. Small devices in and of themselves, each camera contains hundreds of tiny components, each of which must be properly placed to produce a functioning product. In particular, aligning the image sensor is the most important and difficult part of the process, requiring a trained eye, patience and several in-process tests.
Safety and Cleanliness
Getting dirt on your lens is bad enough. It would be terrible if you opened a new camera to find grit in the lens, or to realize its moving parts weren’t working because of debris. To ensure the cleanest, safest production environment possible, we require all of our workers to wear lint-free fabrics, and some technicians also don double-layered hoods, surgical masks and padded booties. When making precise, highly sensitive lenses and cameras, no precaution can be spared.
Last but certainly not least, our rigorous quality-control process all but eliminates the chance a customer will receive a faulty product. Each assembled lens passes through quality control, where it is tested for mechanics and sharpness. Any failed unit is adjusted and readjusted until it renders the test image correctly. Even then, 10 percent of all packaged lenses are randomly selected, unpackaged and loaded onto a camera to ensure they’ll operate properly for customers.
Among Fujifilm’s many unique technologies is one that makes the invisible visible. In fact, there is only one product in the world that has realized this technology and made it commercially available: Prescale. This advanced film makes pressure visible and can even reveal in detail the distribution of pressure on a surface. Therefore, it enables anyone to measure pressure quite easily. Prescale is already an important tool in a wide variety of industries and applications, such as Automobiles, Smartphones, and Food Packaging. Born of proprietary Fujifilm technology, Prescale will continue to find wide use in many industries and applications.
Among Fujifilm’s many unique technologies is one that makes the invisible visible. In fact, there is only one product in the world that has realized this technology and made it commercially available: Prescale. This advanced film makes pressure visible and can even reveal in detail the distribution of pressure on a surface. Therefore, it enables anyone to measure pressure quite easily. Prescale is already an important tool in a wide variety of industries and applications, such as Automobiles, Smartphones, and Food Packaging. Born of proprietary Fujifilm technology, Prescale will continue to find wide use in many industries and applications.
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