Komatsu to tap hybrid market for contruction machines

Komatsu Ltd., a construction machinery maker with more than 180 group firms worldwide, is revving up group efforts to enhance environmental technology to earn from energy-saving products in emerging markets. Komatsu is developing technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in construction machines using a Peltier device, a thermoelectric component developed by temperature-control equipment maker KELK Ltd. The 5x5cm metal sheet device is described as a magical material due to its ability to generate about one watt of electricity per square centimeter. The technology has since 2009 been marketed mainly for use at electric power facilities for the recycling of waste heat. But the firm is seeking to expand its application, hoping to install the device in its hybrid construction machinery as early as fiscal 2011. “Hybrid machines are the accumulation of our efforts to combine countless numbers of energy-saving elements and technologies,” said Masao Fuchigami, director and senior executive officer overseeing R&D activity at Komatsu. (February 1, 2011)