X-MINING X-TALK Vol.7 【Part 1】 SOLAMENT™️-Based Textile Revolution Pioneered through Co-Creation by Three Companies

SOLAMENT™️ is, a seed of innovation. Research and development is an uncertainly business activity. Not all of knowledge and resources, such as new technologies that companies create necessarily lead to innovation. There are countless examples of epoch-making technologies that have been developed over a long period of time and cost a lot of money, but are not used effectively and end up in obscurity. To bring about innovation, by connecting your company’s seeds to needs, it is necessary to change the perspective, which is difficult as long as you stick to the self-sufficiency. I believe that it becomes possible only when there are external businesses and users who see the seed from a different perspective. Establishing SOLAMENT™️ as a seed and developing it as a product are two different paths. Kyodo Printing and Takisada-Nagoya found SOLAMENT™️ with huge potential and gave us a great opportunity through perspective change and reinterpreting technology from various angles.

As a general printing company, we provide a variety of products to society. Some of them are related to securities. When printing securities, it is necessary to protect them with printing technology to prevent abuse. We are studying techniques daily for that purpose. In that process, our developers found that SOLAMENT™️ had different features from those of anti-counterfeit materials used in conventional securities, which prompted us to inquire about it.

That was in 2013, so it has already been nine years since then.

Yes. During those nine years, we found huge potential of SOLAMENT™️. The superiority of SOLAMENT™️ is that SOLAMENT™ is an inorganic pigment with high transparency, with the capability of absorbing near-infrared rays, and with good dispersion. There are other similar materials available when it comes simply to absorption of near-infrared rays, but one notable feature of SOLAMENT™️ is its readiness for being processed into inks and other products thanks to its high dispersibility. The printing of securities is one of the most demanding printing technologies. We realized that SOLAMENT™️ would adequately meet the strict requirements due to its very high degree of perfection and that it is also attractive due to a lower cost than for holograms.

After that, we wondered if this superiority of SOLAMENT™️ could be applied to other applications. I knew that SOLAMENT™️ had the characteristic of absorbing near-infrared rays and generating heat. Based on this, we considered developing various products, such as making paper bags for heat retention. In that process, we found potential in textiles. While fashionability was emphasized in the functional materials of textile manufacturers, there was only vague evidence of their effectiveness. I thought that there would be nothing more successful than introducing a promising seed there and arranging it to match the needs.

It’s truly a paradigm shift in thought and technology. Our idea was that heat could be avoided by selectively absorbing only near-infrared rays. In contrast, Kyodo Printing thought of making use of the heat. I thought this idea was really cool.

After we found we found potential in textiles, we researched textile market and various textile manufacturers. There was demand for hygroscopic heat-generating materials as textiles with a warming effect. They are certainly warmer than others, but by merely 1°C or 2°C. SOLAMENT™️, in contrast, achieves +10°C easily. We wanted to prove it somehow. As our business does not specialize in clothing, we approached several apparel manufacturers. However, they were not interested in the material at all and even we are told “What are you as a printer talking about?” So, we applied SOLAMENT™️ to the clothes we bought at clothing store. We are printing company and good at coating . Then we made clothes by hand with SOLAMENT™️ applied to them. We tested and brought them to the 5th station of Mt. Fuji as a cold climate region. After experiencing how warm the clothes were, we approached Takisada-Nagoya. We lacked the know-how required for fashion designing. We asked Takisada for advice, as the company had the know-how to operate with fashion designing. The company also had the largest stock of fabrics in the industry.

5th station of Mt. Fuji (ASL 2,400m)

You also brought the coated clothes to us. Saeki also tried them at SMM head quarter’s entrance, so I remember it well. You trust and love our product so much. And you have proven it! I think Takisada was taken aback at first. Nevertheless, it was probably because of Kyodo Printing’s enthusiasm that Takisada took action.

Trying on clothes coated with SOLAMENT™ at SMM HQ’S entrance.

In the first place, Kyodo Printing created something other than their main business, and after proving it, they presented it to Takisada. They shared fun with us. I feel that is the great thing about Kyodo Printing. If we, a mining company, were to ask Takisada for advice, which is in the apparel industry, we would probably be unable to have same understanding. I believe Kyodo Printing helped us to have same understanding and goals.

We researched the market thoroughly and asked Takisada for advice when we were confident that since we have done what we could do and there was no choice but to do it. That was our role in this team, at the same time, there was perhaps a sense of competition with Sumitomo Metal Mining. Our engineers say that SOLAMENT™️ is enviably excellent although they don’t want to admit it. And even if you look around the world, you wouldn’t be able to find anything that is as warm as this; it’s probably at a level that you can take to space. I think it was precisely because they were given such a perfect product that they really wanted to make the fiber a success. Since we didn’t want to lose, they probably wouldn’t have made it this far.

No matter how much we think our company’s product is good, no project will move forward unless our partner thinks it’s good and there are people in the partner company who are willing to promote it. What Kyodo Printing has developed this time is something that we could not have imagined at all. We have great expectations that we can make use of it for the benefit of the world.

When it comes to the benefit of the world, one idea is to develop products for the elderly. Elderly people tend to move slowly, so in winter it is difficult for them to warm up unless they wear a lot of clothes. However, clothes made with SOLAMENT™️ can warm the body sufficiently even with light clothing. In addition, even for those who are sensitive to cold, SOLAMENT™️ can be used to provide clothes that sufficiently counter the cold. Due to the properties of SOLAMENT™️, it is possible to use a wide variety of colors, so I think we can develop something that helps make products that are warm enough and fashionable.

Moreover, most textile manufacturers exercise their ingenuity in devising yarns to ensure warmth. With SOLAMENT™️, you don’t have to. You can get good results with regular yarn. This means that a manufacturer can manufacture the product even without high technical prowess or proprietary technology and at a reduced cost.

This is exactly what co-creation is all about. Companies in different fields bring together their invention and commercialization skills to create something completely new and unimagined. I think what Kyodo Printing did is a good example of “X-MINING.”.