Sanshin Mining Ind. Co., Ltd.

Board of Management

President ＆ CEO Junichi Misaki

Joined the company in 1995
1999 Director, General Manager of Sales Planning Dept. and Deputy General Manager of Mining Office
2006 Managing Director
2008- President ＆ CEO

Director Nobuharu Suzuki

Joined the company in 1988
1999 Director, General Manager of Product Development Office (currently Research and Development Office)
2006 Managing Director
2008 Senior Managing Director
2023- Director

Director Tsunemitsu Kakumoto

2003- Director

Director Tomoko Misaki

2008 Corporate Auditor
2023- Director

Director Yukitaka Nishikawa

2023- Director

Corporate Auditor Yoko Saito

2023- Corporate Auditor

Potential of Sericite as a High-Temperature Solid Lubricant

Tribology and Sericite
~Professor Hatsuhiko Usami, Meijo Univ~

Tribology is the science and technology of all phenomena that occur between surfaces in relative motion and affecting each other, such as lubrication, friction, wear, and lubrication.

Among these, I am conducting research on the theme of “Reduction of friction loss by surface heterogeneity that contributes to the construction of a society capable of sustainable development.

In terms of specific technologies involving familiar tribology, it is easy to recognize slider heads that read information on hard disks, brakes and tires of automobiles, and so on.

In addition, we are also involved in various other phenomena on different scales, such as “biotribology,” which functions in living organisms like artificial joints, “space tribology,” which operates in outer space like satellites, and “geotribology,” which studies earthquakes caused by friction between plates on the earth. The “cross-disciplinary” field of geotribology is very broad and includes a wide range of disciplines.
This is a “cross-disciplinary basic technology” that spans an extremely wide range of fields.
There is an episode that further illustrates the magnitude of the impact of tribology: About 60 years ago, the British government asked Professor Jost of Cambridge University to conduct a study to see how much energy could be saved through the management of lubrication. As a result, a report called the “Jost Report^*1” was submitted, which said that 10% of the British national budget could be covered by optimizing lubrication. In addition to the direct benefits of reducing friction, indirect factors such as reducing machine maintenance costs and extending the service life of machinery and equipment were also included, for example, for a total economic benefit of 500 million pounds, or 500 billion yen at the exchange rate of the time. This is how the importance of tribology was recognized.

*1” Source:「 Fundamentals of Tribology」

Currently, as a project in this field, we are working on “creating a structure that facilitates lubrication by controlling the mechanical properties of parts and other surfaces that come into contact with each other.
When you think of “slipping,” many people may think of slipping on a banana peel and falling, but this is not only the banana peel that causes slipping, but also the intrinsic lubricant that seeps out when you step on a soft banana on a hard, flat surface, which causes the peel to slip.

The aforementioned research theme, “Reduction of friction loss by creating a heterogeneous surface structure,” aims to realize a surface structure in mechanical parts that prevents oil film breakage by controlling and creating “heterogeneity,” just like a hard floor and a banana peel.
As a material for this, I am focusing on “sericite,” which is produced by Sanshin Mining. High quality sericite, which is used in cosmetics all over the world, has a high potential to become a very slippery material, and I have positioned it as a key item in this project. Specifically, we hope to form a new lubricating film by mixing sericite with soft metals and compounding it on the surface of conventional steel, castings, aluminum, or titanium alloys to create sliding surfaces that can function at high temperatures and in high vacuums such as outer space, where lubricating oil cannot be used.

We believe that this kind of technology can be applied to automotive parts and other fields that have a large number of parts that involve friction, wear, and lubrication. In the case of automobiles, the loss of a soft layer such as an oil film can cause breakdowns. By creating materials specialized for surfaces to prevent the loss of this soft layer, we hope to contribute to energy conservation in industrial society.

In particular, we are considering the possibility of creating “lubricating water” using “sericite” as a substitute for lubricating oil. Lubricating oil requires a lot of cost to dispose of, and I believe that using water will lead to energy conservation in industrial machinery, thereby reducing the burden on the environment, which in turn will fulfill the current theme of sustainability in the world.

Hatsuhiko Usami
Professor, Department of Materials Science and
Engineering, Meijo University

<Specialties>
Tribology, surface modification, material processing

<Awards>
Best Poster Award, American Ceramic Society

Distinguished Achievement Award, Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (Mechanical Lubrication Design Division)

Fellow of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers

ICM&P2022 (International Conference on Materials and Processing, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers) Best Presentation Award

<Professor Usami’s URL>
Meijo University: Professor “Hatsuhiko Usami
Meijo University: “The 134th Hatsuhiko Usami” (Meijo University)