August 8, 2024
Special Exhibition on Iwatani Naoji of Hydrogen Business Pioneer
Japan's full-scale liquid hydrogen manufacturing plant ！

The Entrepreneurial Museum of Challenge and Innovation (EMCI-Osaka) has started a special exhibition on Iwatani Naoji of hydrogen business pioneers. This exhibition period is from August 6th to November 22nd, 2024 and titled as “Just as propane gas changed the kitchen, hydrogen will change the world in the 21st century.”
Iwatani Naoji, the founder of Iwatani International Corp. was born in Shimane Prefecture in 1903. Iwatani first encountered oxygen gas when he was working as an apprenticeat the age of fifteen.
At the age of 27 in 1930 he independently opened business site in Osaka where he handled oxygen and carbide.
In 1952 he started a propane gas enterprise because after the war, propane gas in cylinders was used as household fuel in Italy and Europe.
Following, in 1978 he completed the first full-scale liquid hydrogen manufacturing plant ever built in Japan. Again, another first for Japan, when the liquid hydrogen rocket H-Ⅰ Rocket No.1 was launched in 1986, it was his liquid hydrogen that provided the fuel. At the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo, Hydrogen Fuel Cell Ship will be planning to operate for transportation system to the Yumeshima EXPO venue.