A Conversation With Satoshi Shimoyama, Vice President of Toray’s Water Treatment & Environment Division

A Conversation With Satoshi Shimoyama, Vice President of Toray’s Water Treatment & Environment Division

By Satoshi Shimoyama 24 July, 2024

Water scarcity is getting more serious. What's the key to this dilemma? Water reuse technology according to Satoshi, Vice President of Toray's Water Treatment & Environment Division. We chat with him to find out more

Toray has grown from starting the development of reverse osmosis membrane in 1968, to becoming a global leader in water treatment and a pioneer in water membrane technology. In this interview we sit down with Satoshi Shimoyama, Vice President of Toray’s Water Treatment & Environment Division. Satoshi-San shares his insights into Toray’s evolution, the importance of their partnerships, the company’s commitment to tackling climate challenges and how water membrane technology will play a crucial role in the future.

CWR: Thank you for sitting down with us, Satoshi-San. Toray first produced a reverse osmosis membrane in 1980 and has since expanded to other water treatment equipment, including purifiers and parts for water electrolysis. How has this journey been? Can you share any trends or observations over this time?

Satoshi Shimoyama (SS): Thank you for this question. Toray started R&D in 1968. We are one of the pioneers of membrane technology. However, the market has been picking up from 1980, especially over the last 20 years.

Toray is one of the pioneers of membrane technology, starting R&D in 1968…

…seen the market really pick up over last 20 years

Toray has a strong belief that water membrane technology will be the essential technology for humans and social well-being. It wasn’t easy at the start but once our mission was set, we stuck to the development and never gave up, persevered and finally developed the membrane technology. From the 1980s, we expanded the business of reverse osmosis membrane, and in 2000, we dynamically expanded our business globally. Geographically, we started business in China, Korea, the United States, the Middle East, Europe, and expanded globally. Currently, we have six production sites globally, Japan, Korea, two in China, United States, and Saudi Arabia. We also have 35 sales offices globally.

Toray’s development has not been limited to R&D on membrane technology, we have also expanded into actual site condition field given the challenging natural conditions around water. We’ve received strong support from Singapore institutes, like PUB, and having desalination plant in Tuas and wastewater treatment plants in Seletar and Changi, we could experience and learn about desalination, how to treat seawater and wastewater.

Key to development have been early stage partnerships, like Toray’s with PUB & SIWW

We are currently one of the top players in the membrane business. Especially for large projects, we have a big share, but the key is not only our strong technical resources but also the partnerships we developed from a very early stage. One of the highlights here is the partnerships with Singaporean major institutes, like PUB, SIWW, and so forth.

CWR: Toray provides services and products for the water sector but what about water at Toray? How is it managed? Do you have any corporate targets?

SS: Toray Group considers sustainability as the key for business and for a company. Currently, the globe is facing challenges like water scarcity, population growth, industrial growth, environmental pollution and how to protect the environment is becoming an imminent issue.

Aims to increase water throughput by 2.5x & reduce water usage by 50% by 2030

Facing these kind of situations, our aim, or our mission, is to contribute to the society by delivering innovative technologies and advanced materials that provide real solutions to the challenges the world faces with balancing development and sustainability. For this, we made targets for water filtration and throughput contribution in the year 2022. Taking the year 2013 as a baseline, we are going to increase the throughput by 2.5 times. And for fiscal year 2030, our target is 3.5 times.

For water usage in production activities, taking the fiscal year 2013 as a baseline, we reduced water usage by 32% in the year 2022. And for the fiscal year 2030, our target is to reduce more than 50% of such water usage.

CWR: Toray produces a wide range of products including fibres, textiles, performance chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and more. Being in a company that produces so many different products, are there any benefits or synergies in the manufacturing?

SS: Yes, Toray started development from synthetic fibres, more specifically viscose rayon and then diversified to polyester and nylon fibres. We also diversified into film, resin, ultra-microbial fibre, non-woven fabrics and carbon fibre.

These products all look different, has different shape and property. But they are all developed by our key technologies, which are organic synthetic chemistry, polymer chemistry, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. Our water membrane is also the outcome of these key technologies. With the processing technologies, such as microstructure technology and surface control technology, the whole range of polymer science technologies accumulated from 1926 is a strong resource of Toray, which leads to diversification into different products.

CWR: Since we are sitting here at Singapore International Water Week, I have to ask, how have you found it, has it been useful? SIWW started very tech and solutions-focused, matching your membranes and technology but like the water sector has become bigger since we need to deal with increasing related risks like climate change and sea level rise. Do you find it useful to learn about these other topics at SIWW?

SS: This is an important point. Toray has been a founding sponsor of SIWW from the beginning, and it is the most in-the-focus event for water treatment technology, I believe, it gathers key industry players to explore future innovation. Singapore is also a hub of water treatment technology that gets those key players at SIWW, so it was a very efficient and dynamic event for us to participate in.

Toray has been a founding sponsor of SIWW from the beginning in part because it gathers key industry players to explore future innovation like it did before with NEWater

For instance, the NEWater project. Although initially regarded as very advanced and conceptual in early 2000s, after joining a plant tour during SIWW, people realized this is real and came to see it as a reality to change and convert wastewater to drinkable water.

To tackle global warming and water scarcity, indirect and direct potable water use projects are emerging. Like in the West Coast in the United States and will spread elsewhere in the globe. We firmly believe taking NEWater as an example, SIWW has made a significant contribution to resolving the global water crisis.

CWR: Looking forward, with all the experience you have, and Toray has in the water sector, what do you see as the key trends today? Where are the areas of growth but also gaps that we need to pay more attention to?

SS: Currently water scarcity is getting harsher and more serious due to global warming, uneven distribution of rainfall, increase of population and increase of living standards. And the gap between water demand and supply is widening, can be by two-digit percent gap. In this kind of era, people are in need of economical water sources, and at the same time the global environment is contaminated by wastewater.

Water scarcity is getting harsher and more serious due pollution & global warming…

…water reuse technology is the key to this dilemma

I think there is a technology to resolve this crisis and dilemma, and that is water reuse technology. For example, in California, Los Angeles, a state-of-the-art water treatment facility is providing a surprising solution to Southern California. They are facing a very severe drought, and it is said some areas of California have seen the earth sink 100 feet due to the relentless pumping of groundwater. So, the Albert Robles Center for Wastewater Recycling in Pico Rivera is on a mission to help replenish half of the total water supply for 4 million people across 43 cities, representing 10% of the state’s population using advanced membrane technology. It turned municipal wastewater into drinkable water.

Also in San Diego, there is a project called San Diego Pure Water, and they have a plan to supply 30% of city water by wastewater reclamation. In Southern California, it’s embracing the power of material innovation to ensure a vibrant and sustainable future for 24 million people, and the central to that technology is ultrafiltration (UF) and reverse osmosis (RO).

Toray is committed to support wastewater reuse, like the project in Southern California

And Toray, after six years of testing, for example at San Diego Pure Water, was qualified to be used at this wastewater recycling project in Southern California to save the water scarcity program. This is just an example of our work in North America, but we believe this will be the case all over the globe.

Toray is committed to support wastewater reuse with cutting-edge technology. We are the only manufacturer that has RO, NF and MBR with genuine technology and we are committed to resolve such kind of water crises and water scarcity issues with our membrane technology.

Further readings

• Drinkwell: HIX Nanotechnology for Groundwater Purification – Drinkwell’s 500+ water ATMs provide an economically viable solution for delivering water access. We talk with Chowdhury, CEO & Co-Founder, to learn about the benefits of their tech, expansion plans & the challenges they face
• 8 Things To Know About Recycling Water – Recycling water could alleviate some of China’s water challenges. Yet, only 10% of its treated wastewater is recycled. Not sure what reclaimed water is? Check out China Water Risk’s 8 things you should know
• Peak Sustainability Ventures: Early-stage Water Investing in India – Isn’t it ironic that the modern age of AI co-exists with a billion people that don’t have access to clean drinking water? We chat with Shah, Managing Partner of Peak Sustainability Ventures who doesn’t think only investing in ‘sexy’ tech will solve our water problems

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