NEC shares rise on nanotube report

Shares in chips-to-computers conglomerate NEC rose Monday after the release of a report stating the company's intention to mass-produce carbon nanotubes--microscopic structures heralded for their strength and conductivity--as early as 2004.

A representative for NEC said the company was on track to develop carbon nanotube production technology to meet its 2005 target launch date for fuel cells using the high-tech material, although it planned to tap another firm to do the manufacturing.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily reported Monday that NEC would begin mass production of carbon nanohorns--a conical variation of nanotubes--as early as 2004 at the rate of one ton per year.

The report helped buoy NEC's shares, which ended morning trade up 0.15 percent despite a 2.21 percent drop in the Nikkei average.

NEC has said it would use the nanohorns to facilitate the catalytic process in compact fuel cells for mobile phones and other electronic goods.

Fuel cells are under development by several Japanese electronics companies as a much longer-lasting alternative to rechargeable batteries.

"NEC is targeting 2005 as the release date for the fuel cells, and in line with that we're continuing to advance the development of carbon nanohorns and the technologies involved for mass production," the NEC representative said.

"The mass production most probably would not be carried out by NEC, but by another company," he said.

Several Japanese companies have announced plans for volume production of nanotubes, which have a wide range of potential applications in fields from medicine to electronics.

The Japanese government has targeted nanotechnology, which involves structures at the molecular level with a scale as small as a few billionths of a meter--or nanometers, as an area where it hopes Japan can reassert its technological prowess after suffering setbacks in semiconductors and other high-tech fields.

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