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CADMIERRE: A SIMPLE CADMIUM ASSAY KIT BY KANSAI ELECTRIC POWER
2/5/2010

Testing for Cadmium levels in agricultural products has been time consuming (24 hours or more) and labor intensive at best using conventional methods. With the simple assay kit “Cadmierre” developed by Kansai Electric Power, the process only takes about 90 minutes without requiring specialized techniques.



The core technology, the world’s first immune-chromatography that detects Cd through the Cd antibody, was developed by the Kansai Electric Power Engineering Research Laboratory and Environment Research.

Cadmium designated as one of the six most toxic materials banned by European Union's RoHS regulation, has been a topic of contention among those in the international solar business, since a U.S. company succeeded in reducing the cost of PV cells by using cadmium telluride PV technology. The use of cadmium telluride in solar cells have always been banned in Japan, despite Europe's and the U.S.’s stances in making an exception for use in solar devices.  Japan had a painful experience in the early 1900s through widespread incidents of cadmium poisoning.

“In the 1950s and 1960s industrial exposure to cadmium was high, but as the toxic effects of cadmium became apparent, industrial limits on cadmium exposure have been reduced in most industrialized nations and many policy makers agree on the need to reduce exposure further… Environmental exposure to cadmium has been particularly problematic in Japan where many people have consumed rice that was grown in cadmium contaminated irrigation water. This phenomenon is known under the name itai-itai disease.”
Referenced from Wikipedia under Cadmium Poisoning

For more information on Cadmierre
For more information on other Green Technologies of the Kansai area please visit: Kankeiren Site



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