Nippon Steel Engineering has come up with a technology called Self Heat Recuperation which uses circulation employing self heat, with no additional outside heat required. Using this technology, they succeeded in reducing the conventional cost of producing bio ethanol by 85%. Self heat renewal is a new way of using energy proposed by Professor Atsushi Tsutsumi of the Energy and Research Center of Tokyo University. In the industrial process which adds the heat caused by conventional heat furnaces and combustion furnaces for distillation and concentration, the amount of energy consumed is reduced by 80-87.5%.

Heat arises when gas and liquid gas are compressed in a compressor. By returning this heat to the process again, energy is not discarded and therefore can be fully used again. For about 5 years now, Professor Tsutsumi has been conducting simulations using heat produced by self heat recuperation. However, this time marks the very first time ever that effectiveness on the plant level has been confirmed. Self heat recuperation is a technology which can be applied to industrial gas production processes such as PSA and air separation, as well as cryogenic air separation. Self heat recuperation is attracting considerable note in that it will greatly reduce the cost of producing industrial gas. It will also contribute to greater competitiveness for processes using industrial gas such as IGCC, and combustion.