Annual Report 2000 - Clariant

Electronic Materials – Life Science Molecules – Specialty Intermediates
Light-sensitive coatings
Electronic materials (lse.clariant.
com) play a major role in the production
of microchips, flat panel
displays and electronic equipment.
This business unit’s most important
products are so-called photoresists
– light-sensitive coatings applied as
films on silicon wafers that are to
be processed into microchips. The
most important production specification
for Clariant’s AZ ® Photoresists
(www.azresist.com) is to have
a totally dust-free environment,
since impurity is one of the greatest
risks in subsequent chip production.
However, Clariant’s other electronic
chemicals, such as developers and
thinners, also meet high purity standards.
These materials are transported
through highly sensitive filtering
systems that only allow particles
smaller than 0.0001 mm to
pass through.
Standard recipes and customer
syntheses
The manufacture of pharmaceuticals
and crop protection agents is
based in part on so-called Life
Science Molecules (lse.clariant.
com). The activities of Clariant and
BTP (www.archimica.com) have
been successfully merged into this
new business unit (see pages 8/9).
Clariant supplies a large number of
such precursors and intermediates
to pharmaceutical companies and
agricultural chemical companies,
either in standard recipes or
custom-synthesized to conform to
specific customer requirements.
One of these intermediates is
diketene, which is obtained from
acetic acid. This substance is
processed further in a number of
steps and is the precursor for a
wide range of final products such as
vitamin E, sweeteners, insecticides,
or pharmaceuticals. Clariant itself
uses diketene to produce methyl
acetate, a precursor for the analgesic
Novalgin and the broad-spectrum
antibiotic Amoxicillin.
Crop protection agents help to
achieve optimal utilization of limited
acreages, protect crops from
pests, and increase yields. Clariant
produces various precursors used in
the manufacture of herbicides,
fungicides and insecticides. They
include agrochemicals based on glyoxylic
acid. Clariant has developed
a class of environmentally friendly
cross-linking agents through the
production of Highlink ® DM from
glyoxal derivatives. These crosslinkers
are used in the adhesives,
textile and coatings industries.
Lancaster Synthesis (www.
lancaster.co.uk), formerly a subsidiary
of BTP, supplies thousands of
laboratory chemicals needed for
research and the manufacture of
small customer-specific quantities
of complex chemicals. This company’s
excellent reputation allows
us to collaborate with key customers
in very early stages of product
development.
For industrial production
In its Specialties Intermediates
business unit (lse.clariant.com),
Clariant manufactures precursors
used in the industrial-scale production
of fibers, plastics and pigments,
as well as in the manufacture of
additional specialty chemicals. For
example, Clariant is a major supplier
of monochloroacetic acid. One
of the uses of this intermediate,
which has a wide variety of applications,
is to manufacture detergents
and cleaning products, adhesives,
paints, and even synthetic caffeine
used by the pharmaceutical industry.
Product developers have also
achieved nice successes in the field
of hair dyes: Intermediates, including
the oxidation hair dye
HC Blue AC ®, have made Clariant
one of the world’s leading suppliers
of hair dye precursors.
Exactly your chemistry.
31