CDW Holding Limited has announced their invention of a new water-soluble compound (LANFA) which can improve hydrophilicity and water solubility. CDW’s subsidiaries have applied for a patent for LANFA in Japan and may also file an international patent application in the future.
Mr Yoshikawa Makoto, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CDW, remarked: “These R&D breakthroughs are a testament to our Group’s growing R&D capabilities and the efforts and hard work of Dr. MANDAI Tadakatsu and Dr. SENOO Yuhki who invented LANFA. We believe in many opportunities that new compound and substance present to various industries including existing business and are also working on dispersion in graphene, which is hailed as a “miracle material”. We will continually invest to develop our other non-core businesses to grow and diversify the company.”
LANFA’s unique features and corresponding benefits include:
- Able to synthesize with a wide variety of substances and has customisable hydrophilicity and water solubility properties, therefore can be used in a wide range of fields and applications, while easily adjustable to meet different market needs;
- Its simplified synthetization process allows for high yield of LANFA, via a small number of reaction processes, which leads to a low production cost;
- Water-solubilised compounds possess high reproducibility in production, homogeneity, and quality assurance, which would create high mass producibility and consistency; and
- It is possible to combine with metals and fine ceramics theoretically, making it feasible to develop dispersions and solutions of these materials
LANFA’s potential applications encompasses a wide range of industries and products:
- LANFA can be applied to cosmetic product ingredients. Some cosmetic product ingredients have poor water solubility and require the use of surfactants that must undergo strict safety testing. With the use of LANFA, the use of surfactants may not be necessary. CDW has succeeded in water solubilisation of the ingredient Bakuchiol and has submitted samples to potential customers. The benefits of Bakuchiol, when applied as a facial cream, include significant improvements in fine lines, pigmentation, elasticity, firmness, and overall reduction of photodamage. Other target ingredients in the cosmetics industry include Resveratrol, Pterostilbene, Ceramide and Silicon.
- LANFA can also be combined with metals such as gold, silver, and copper, as well as with fine ceramics including aluminum oxide and zirconium oxide, and CDW believes that dispersions and solutions of these materials can be developed, with plans to select targets, gather information, and conduct research by the first half of 2024 to determine the feasibility of this project.
- In addition, LANFA has anti-fogging and anti-fouling properties due to its hydrophilic improvement function. These functions can possibly be applied in the area of antifog coating, which is used on a great variety of substrates, and in a wide range of fields such as the building & construction, automotive, aviation & aerospace, electronics, military & security, and medical & safety industries. The global antifog coating market was valued at USD$17.34 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow to USD$22.06 billion by 2029, with a CAGR of 3.5% during the forecast period. The antifog function could potentially be applied to camera lenses used by customers of the Group’s core LCD backlight unit business, and for the development of functional films used in both LCD backlight unit business and OA business. Currently, more test data collection and further process improvements are being conducted to increase LANFA’s efficacy in this area.
CDW intends to market LANFA to both existing and potential customers for sale, while expanding the possibilities of licensing-out LANFA to cosmetic ingredient manufacturers and trading companies. CDW has already started discussions with a major trading company handling chemical products and a company engaged in coating processing and sales of eyeglass lenses, optical parts and filters on the possibility of applying LANFA to their products.
CDW’s share price as of 11 December 2023 after market close was S$0.20.
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CDW Holding Limited (the “Company” and together with its subsidiaries, the “Group”) is a Japanese-managed precision components specialist serving the global market focusing on the production and supply of niche precision components for digital instrument panels in the automobile industry, notebook computers, consumer and information technology equipment, office equipment and electrical appliances, and an original equipment manufacturer. The Group is headquartered in Hong Kong and has operations in Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines. The Company has been identifying new businesses to invest in with the potential for growth and entered as part of its diversification strategy and has made forays into the Life Sciences sector since 2016. The Company’s aim for its Life Sciences business is to identify research-driven yet commercialisable projects that can have a positive impact on the quality of human life.
