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<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine<br />
CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010<br />
The Green Power<br />
of <strong>Chemistry</strong><br />
Developments in the fi eld of chemistry<br />
make a sustainable lifestyle possible
Sand becomes solar silicon, and solar silicon becomes solar<br />
energy: We deliver indispensable base elements for<br />
the low-cost production of solar cells. We are the creative<br />
industrial group from Germany active in the fi elds of<br />
Chemicals, Energy and Real Estate. With over 100 production<br />
sites in around 30 countries we are one of the world’s<br />
leading providers in the profi table specialty chemicals market.<br />
Who helps turn<br />
sand into solar cells?<br />
We do.<br />
www.evonik.com
PHOTOGRAPHY: BERNHARD HUBER<br />
There’s No Progress Without <strong>Chemistry</strong><br />
Professor Dr. Hans-Jörg Bullinger, President of the Fraunhofer Society, writes about the challenges<br />
facing chemistry at the end of the oil era<br />
Shaping technological change—In Germany, the period of strong<br />
growth in the chemicals industry, automaking, and mechanical<br />
engineering is already over. Germany as a research location is<br />
still a leader in these technological fields, which have a great economic<br />
impact. But a transformation has begun, and these industries<br />
are facing huge challenges. The chemicals industry must<br />
shape the change to white biotechnology, even though there will<br />
still be a place for traditional methods, and the automotive<br />
industry must shape the change to electromobility. The basic raw<br />
materials of industrial society to date—coal, oil, and natural<br />
gas—are growing scarce and thus increasingly expensive. Climate<br />
change and stricter environmental laws are demanding new<br />
alternatives.<br />
Going places with e-mobility—The development of electromobility<br />
is dependent on its key component, the battery.<br />
Germany should make massive efforts to occupy a leading role<br />
in battery technology. In recent years, the universities have<br />
abolished almost all of the professorships for electrochemistry.<br />
This is having an effect on the publication statistics for German<br />
scientists in the area of electrochemistry, especially in the field of<br />
battery technology. Similarly, the number of patents registered<br />
by German companies and research institutes in this field is not<br />
very promising. The Fraunhofer Society has launched extensive<br />
measures to build up research capabilities in these areas. The<br />
German Research Foundation (DFG) has started a research initiative<br />
regarding high-performance lithium batteries. It would<br />
make sense to concentrate in the future on<br />
batteries of the next generation.<br />
Replacing oil gradually—Biomass is the<br />
only alternative source of carbon for the<br />
chemicals and pharmaceutical industry.<br />
The use of biogenic raw materials is inextricably<br />
linked with industrial biotechnology.<br />
Sustainably produced raw materi-<br />
“Mister Innovation,”<br />
Hans-Jörg Bullinger,<br />
is head of the<br />
Fraunhofer Society<br />
“ To address our global<br />
challenges, we have to<br />
gain advantages from<br />
efficiency and help<br />
achieve sustainability.”<br />
FOREWORD 3<br />
als are used to manufacture chemical and pharmaceutical<br />
products as well as foodstuffs, feed products, and energy<br />
sources. Today, German industry is already using more than<br />
two million tons of sustainably produced raw materials,<br />
which is about ten percent of all chemical raw materials.<br />
The prerequisites for increasing this percentage are sufficient<br />
availability, constant high quality, and competitive prices. These<br />
requirements can be met by developing new biotechnological<br />
processes and biocatalysts that are highly selective, economical,<br />
and sustainable. All of the world’s leading chemicals companies<br />
agree that biotechnology is the key technology of the 21st century.<br />
The Fraunhofer Society has addressed this challenge by<br />
launching an interdisciplinary research association that consists<br />
of eight Fraunhofer institutes and aligning its process technology<br />
research in this direction.<br />
Taking the forest path—With the aim of becoming the world<br />
leader in biorefinery research, Germany has set up a pilot plant<br />
where industrial companies can experiment with the switch<br />
from oil to wood, which is a sustainable raw material. In June the<br />
German Minister of Agriculture, Ilse Aigner, handed over a confirmation<br />
of government aid amounting to almost €8.5 million to<br />
a research association of 20 partners that aims to commission<br />
a test plant in the chemicals industrial venue Leuna by the end of<br />
2011. In recent years, research partners such as Bayer, <strong>Evonik</strong>,<br />
and the Fraunhofer Society, coordinated by the Society for<br />
Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (Dechema), have<br />
developed a process that transforms wood into cellulose,<br />
hemicellulose, and lignin of previously unattained high quality<br />
and converts these into sugar. This is the starting material for<br />
chemical and biotechnological processes.<br />
Using biotechnologies—The research area of industrial<br />
white biotechnology is especially important for the chemical,<br />
pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and food industries. These<br />
areas, together with the users of their products—for example,<br />
the plastics, automotive, and electrical industries—will have<br />
a decisive impact on biotechnology. From the perspective of industry<br />
and research, biotechnology is an important growth<br />
market that also offers tremendous innovation potential. There’s<br />
a great deal of interest in systematic process technology solutions<br />
that not only encompass the entire field of processes—in<br />
other words, everything from the biogenic<br />
raw material, enzymes and biotransformation<br />
processes to the bio-based product—<br />
but also take sustainability into account.<br />
When it comes to chemical and biological<br />
process technology, Germany also has<br />
an excellent opportunity to participate in<br />
the growth markets of the future.<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
4 CONTENTS<br />
The Authors<br />
The authors whose<br />
contributions made this<br />
special issue possible:<br />
Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Bullinger, President<br />
of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, has not<br />
only been honored with numerous international<br />
awards; in 1998 he also received<br />
the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of<br />
Germany for outstanding service to science,<br />
business, and society<br />
Markus Honsig is a freelance journalist<br />
and author. His work focuses on topics such<br />
as the development of the automobile and<br />
its importance for the environment, business,<br />
and society<br />
Klaus Jopp is a freelance journalist and<br />
editor specializing in the natural sciences<br />
and technology. He is the author of the<br />
book Nanotechnologie – Aufbruch ins Reich<br />
der Zwerge (Nanotechnology—Setting<br />
Course for the Land of the Dwarves)<br />
Michael Kömpf is a science journalist<br />
specializing in medicine and technology.<br />
He writes about innovative technologies<br />
for science and business media<br />
Christiane Oppermann is a freelance business<br />
journalist and author. She has served<br />
as an editor at Manager Magazin and Stern as<br />
well as a department head at Woche<br />
Dr. Brigitte Röthlein is a science author.<br />
Her latest book is about the Curies:<br />
Marie und Pierre Curie – Leben in Extremen<br />
(Marie and Pierre Curie—Life at the<br />
Extremes)<br />
Tom Schimmeck works as a freelance<br />
journalist for newspapers, magazines,<br />
and radio. He writes about politics, science,<br />
and technology<br />
Günter Verheugen is an honorary professor<br />
at the European University Viadrina in<br />
Frankurt (Oder). Until February 2010 he<br />
served as the European Union<br />
Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry<br />
Dr. Caroline Zörlein is a science journalist<br />
and chemist. She writes for general<br />
interest media and corporate magazines<br />
MASTHEAD<br />
Publisher:<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong> AG<br />
Christian Kullmann<br />
Rellinghauser Str. 1–11<br />
45128 Essen<br />
Dr. Klaus Engel speaks with Dr. Thilo Bode Page 6 Dr. Godwin Mabande works in Ludwigshafen Page 12<br />
The latest generation of cars are light thanks to plastics, carbon fi ber, and chemicals—and sporty like the McLaren<br />
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Art Direction:<br />
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HOFFMANN UND CAMPE<br />
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Harvestehuder Weg 42<br />
20149 Hamburg<br />
Telephone +49 40 44188-457<br />
Fax +49 40 44188-236<br />
e-mail cp@hoca.de
Uta Heinrich and Volkhard Czwielong are working for progress in Marl Page 42<br />
MP4-12C Page 32<br />
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PHOTOGRAPHY: MCLAREN AUTOMOTIVE, KIRSTEN NEUMANN, BASF SE, CATRIN MORITZ, YOUNICOS,<br />
MONTAGE: THOMAS DASHUBER, ULLSTEIN BILD/AISA; COVER ILLUSTRATION: AXEL KOCK<br />
All solar technology is chemistry Page 46<br />
Dr. Bettina Lotsch, a professor at age 32 Page 52<br />
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premium printing, Wittingen<br />
Copyright: © 2010 by<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong> AG, Essen.<br />
Reprinting only with the<br />
permission of the publisher.<br />
The contents do not<br />
necessarily reflect the opinion<br />
of the publisher.<br />
Contact:<br />
Questions and suggestions on<br />
the contents of the magazine:<br />
Telephone<br />
+49 201 177-3831,<br />
Fax<br />
+49 201 177-2908,<br />
e-mail<br />
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CONTENTS 5<br />
FOREWORD<br />
3 There’s No Progress Without <strong>Chemistry</strong><br />
Prof. Hans-Jörg Bullinger, President of the Fraunhofer Society, on the<br />
challenges facing chemistry at the end of the oil era<br />
DEBATING<br />
6 Dialogue<br />
Dr. Klaus Engel debates Dr. Thilo Bode on reconciling the economy and<br />
ecology. What responsibility does the chemical industry have?<br />
DEVELOPING<br />
12 German Chemicals Take On the World<br />
The new markets are on the other side of the globe, where new players<br />
from China, India, and the Middle East are taking their place on the<br />
world’s chemicals stage. How is the German chemical industry meeting<br />
the challenge?<br />
DESIGNING<br />
28 Günter Verheugen<br />
The chemical industry used to spark fierce debates, but today people are<br />
talking about the many solutions it offers for future problems. An essay<br />
SHAPING<br />
32 <strong>Chemistry</strong> Gives Automobiles Wings<br />
New materials and technologies are ushering in a new age of automotive<br />
design, and permanently changing the way we look at mobility<br />
EXPERIENCING<br />
42 The Battle of the Backyard<br />
Many Germans immediately get up in arms whenever an industrial project is<br />
being planned—even if the plans call for a biogas facility or wind turbine.<br />
RECOGNIZING<br />
46 Catching Rays with <strong>Chemistry</strong><br />
Whether its solar cells or energy storage systems, energy-efficiency technologies<br />
have one thing in common: They are based on discoveries in chemistry<br />
ACHIEVING<br />
52 The Women After Curie<br />
A hundred years ago, Prof. Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize for chemistry.<br />
Today many women study chemistry, but few go on to occupy top positions<br />
LIVING<br />
58 Microzoos for Saving the World<br />
Tom Schimmeck reports on biochemistry, the solution to global problems<br />
CHROMA-CHEM®,<br />
COLORTREND®,<br />
DYNACOLL®, DYNAPOL®,<br />
PLEXIGLAS®, ROHACELL®,<br />
STOKO®, and VESTAMID®<br />
are registered trademarks of <strong>Evonik</strong><br />
<strong>Industries</strong> AG or one of its<br />
subsidiaries. They are indicated in<br />
capital letters throughout the text<br />
You can also find this<br />
issue of <strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine<br />
online at<br />
www.evonik.com<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
6 DEBATING<br />
“The Million-Dollar Question”<br />
Dr. Thilo Bode is the<br />
founder of the Foodwatch<br />
consumer protection<br />
organization. Prior to that,<br />
he served as an executive at<br />
Greenpeace. His most<br />
recent book is Abgespeist<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine: Dr. Engel, you are the CEO of an<br />
internationally operating industrial group that is soon<br />
to be listed on the stock market. What do you feel<br />
more committed to: your shareholders’ earnings or the<br />
common good?<br />
Klaus Engel: That’s one of the million-dollar questions.<br />
The most recent financial crisis demonstrated<br />
that a one-sided focus on short-term profit is not very<br />
helpful. It also revealed that although we’ve talked a<br />
lot about sustainability during the past few years, we<br />
haven’t really taken the topic seriously. We need to<br />
think about future generations. But to answer your<br />
question: Acting responsibly also means balancing different<br />
interests. We need capital in order to do business,<br />
but we also have to use labor and other resources<br />
carefully and think hard about how to create value for<br />
all of the stakeholders.<br />
Dr. Bode, you studied economics, and you’ve very<br />
successfully served in several positions, some in the<br />
private sector. You were the head of Greenpeace<br />
for 12 years, and in 2002 you established the Foodwatch<br />
consumer protection organization. Did you do an<br />
intentional about-face, or has your career simply developed<br />
in a logical direction?<br />
Thilo Bode: If I could first briefly comment on Dr.<br />
Engel’s answer…<br />
Engel: … yes, please.<br />
Bode: First of all, the financial crisis did not occur because<br />
of the pursuit of short-term profit but instead<br />
because governments gave bank managers instruments<br />
that rendered basic banking regulations<br />
inoperative. Secondly, what you said about divided<br />
responsibility is sugar coating. Everybody knows<br />
that when things get difficult, companies must think<br />
primarily about their profits—and there’s absolutely<br />
nothing wrong with that. After all, it’s not their job<br />
to save the world. Please don’t take this personally,<br />
but I consider all the babbling about corporate social<br />
responsibility to be nothing but hot air. Now to answer<br />
the question: I didn’t switch sides. I’m still fighting on<br />
the same front, it just involves different aspects. The<br />
environment is a legally protected common good, and<br />
consumer protection—admittedly a horrible phrase—<br />
involves protecting individual consumer rights. In both<br />
cases, the idea is to roll back the inordinate amount of<br />
influence that business has on government. Basically,<br />
we’re foot soldiers fighting for the common good—but<br />
without weapons.
Can economy and ecology be reconciled? What is the responsibility of the chemical<br />
industry in this regard? Klaus Engel, CEO of <strong>Evonik</strong> and president-elect of the<br />
German Chemical Industry Association, debates Thilo Bode, founder of Foodwatch and<br />
former executive director of Greenpeace<br />
HOST MANFRED BISSINGER PHOTOGRAPHY KIRSTEN NEUMANN<br />
Dr. Klaus Engel is a chemist<br />
who began his career at<br />
Chemische Werke Hüls. He<br />
has served as the CEO of<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong> AG since<br />
January 1, 2009<br />
DEBATING 7<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
8 DEBATING<br />
“ I reject the suggestion put forth<br />
by business that all problems can be<br />
overcome with technology” Thilo Bode<br />
One of the biggest issues in recent decades has<br />
been how to reconcile economy and ecology.<br />
Do you have the feeling that progress has been<br />
made—and if so, what type of progress?<br />
Bode: Reconciliation has not succeeded, and anyone<br />
who says anything different is not paying attention to<br />
the facts. We probably lost the battle against global<br />
warming long ago, and we’re losing the fight to maintain<br />
biodiversity, which is the second major issue. Now<br />
to the microeconomic level: When Mr. Engel uses his<br />
amino acids to make poultry feed processing a little<br />
more efficient and thus helps to reduce greenhouse gas<br />
emissions from meat production, he’s making money<br />
while he’s doing it, and what he does is also good for<br />
the climate. However, this microeconomic reconciliation<br />
of ecology and economy changes nothing in terms<br />
of the negative global situation.<br />
Are we experiencing a painful process that will require<br />
even more courage on our part in the future?<br />
Engel: We have set ourselves an ambitious goal, and<br />
I am convinced that we can only achieve it through<br />
constructive dialogue with all the parties involved—<br />
businesses, governments, unions, churches, and of<br />
course NGOs. We need to organize this dialogue in<br />
an impartial manner. We in the chemical industry, at<br />
least, are striving to reconcile economic, environmental,<br />
and social needs.<br />
Bode: You wanted to answer the question about reconciling<br />
economy and ecology. We’ve already had enough<br />
dialogue. All everyone does is talk…<br />
Engel: … so why isn’t anything happening, Mr. Bode?<br />
Bode: Because responsibilities aren’t being clearly delineated<br />
and there has been no clear commitment by<br />
business to accept the role of a strong government. We<br />
need laws and regulations. There can be no sustainability<br />
without national and international intervention in<br />
the market. Such intervention has to happen, and companies<br />
finally need to honestly answer the question as<br />
to the role government should play.<br />
Do governments and the political parties that form<br />
them understand what’s at stake here?<br />
Engel: It’s true that economic and environmental concerns<br />
have not yet been reconciled in all areas. We need<br />
to keep working toward this goal, as it is still a very important<br />
task. On the other hand, I believe it’s unfortunate<br />
that during the crisis the government degenerated<br />
into a type of repair-shop outfit. Government should<br />
not try to act as though it were better at conducting<br />
business than the businesses themselves; instead, it<br />
should establish the key framework conditions. We<br />
need to reach a basic consensus that is acceptable for<br />
all social groups on how we wish to shape the future.<br />
And it’s important that the NGOs are involved here as<br />
well, Mr. Bode.<br />
Bode: I don’t agree with your view of the role of government.<br />
Seeking consensus is not the main job of the<br />
state. The primary task of government is to weigh conflicting<br />
interests and then to make decisions—if necessary,<br />
against the interests of business. What I’ve seen,<br />
however, is that governments have largely surrendered<br />
their regulating function. This was very clear<br />
to see during the crisis, when governments were unable<br />
to implement the necessary capital market regulations,<br />
not because they didn’t want to but because the<br />
influence of the financial sector was too strong. Corporations<br />
are working both sides of the street. On the<br />
one hand, they produce glossy brochures about social<br />
responsibility, while on the other hand they de-
ploy armies of lobbyists fortified with billions of euros<br />
in order to shoot holes in the regulations and established<br />
standards that govern sustainability. This has<br />
to change.<br />
So there’s no chance that we’ll see an alliance<br />
of reason and responsibility between government,<br />
industry, and the citizens?<br />
Bode: That’s completely idealistic. What we need to<br />
do is to look at the conflicting interests of the parties<br />
involved. Businesses have an obligation to generate<br />
profit for themselves and their shareholders. Mercedes<br />
is the market leader for large sedans; it can’t simply<br />
start building bicycles overnight. That would be economic<br />
suicide. Alliances? What’s supposed to come of<br />
that? Either business gets its way or we get solutions<br />
without substance and a dreadful type of regulation<br />
chaos, simply because no one has clearly addressed the<br />
competing interests involved. What we need is clear<br />
and honest debate and less cheap talk.<br />
Engel: I’m not that pessimistic. After all, we’ve made<br />
good progress—and in a few cases even done too much<br />
good, if you look at some of the regulations we now<br />
have. Mr. Bode, some of our laws here in Germany are<br />
now more restrictive and far-reaching than those in any<br />
other country worldwide. We therefore have problems<br />
with competitiveness because we’ve decided to be the<br />
pioneer in environmental technology. That’s all right,<br />
and we can accept it as long as jobs aren’t transferred<br />
out of the country and we don’t dismantle our industrial<br />
base. We put a lot of effort into the EU’s REACH<br />
legislation in order to regulate the use and production<br />
of chemical substances—to enhance consumer safety,<br />
among other things. But we also have to state clearly<br />
that if we want to live in a no-risk society, we’ll end<br />
up sitting on the sidelines of the development of key<br />
future technologies and all the opportunities they offer.<br />
And it also means that people will have to sacrifice<br />
some of their prosperity.<br />
Bode: If we succeed here in defining clear positions on<br />
both sides, then we’ll already have accomplished a lot.<br />
Our goal in this discussion is not necessarily to generate<br />
a single opinion. The chemical industry has manufactured<br />
some horrible products over the years and<br />
contaminated the world with toxic chemicals. Nevertheless,<br />
it’s quite useful that you are now developing<br />
technologies for vehicle tires that reduce fuel consumption<br />
by ten percent—hats off to you! Still, we need<br />
to establish a consensus that this is not enough. Sustain-<br />
ability requires us to think in broader terms. Of course<br />
competitiveness plays a role, and I’ll also concede that<br />
you’ve accomplished some things. My point is that it’s<br />
still not enough.<br />
Engel: I agree. I can understand your criticism, and I<br />
believe some of it is justified, but we should nonetheless<br />
not really try to turn back the clock and create paradise-like<br />
conditions so that we can live like Adam and<br />
Eve. We can’t do that, and we don’t want to either.<br />
Can you be more specific?<br />
Engel: Here in Europe, we already live in a highly developed<br />
region, which is why we don’t have the right to<br />
tell the emerging markets they’re not allowed to catch<br />
up with us. Even though we’re giving them excellent<br />
advice, that realization is also part of the challenge of<br />
preventing the planet from getting even further out<br />
of balance. Whether it’s energy consumption, climate<br />
change, or the question of how we can feed all these<br />
people, and what that will mean for the agricultural<br />
system, the water supply, and all other resources—my<br />
belief is that we can only overcome this challenge if we<br />
utilize the technologies that are already available today.<br />
This process can pose risks and will consume resources.<br />
However, people need to know that the luxury<br />
we enjoy cannot simply be ordered on the Internet<br />
without any risk.<br />
Bode: Again I have to disagree with you. Along with industry’s<br />
lack of acceptance of the role of government,<br />
you’ve also got another blind spot: the limits of growth.<br />
I’m a huge fan of technology—but the only thing we<br />
can do with it and the associated increase in resource<br />
efficiency is to postpone the day when the limits are<br />
reached. Moreover, it’s for society to decide whether<br />
it wants to accept the risks of technology. I reject the<br />
suggestion put forth by business that all problems can<br />
be overcome with technology. The best example is the<br />
electric car. Here, the automotive industry wants us<br />
to believe that we can keep driving a two-ton Daimler—all<br />
we have to do is to stick a plug into an electric<br />
socket, otherwise everything stays the same. That’s<br />
not going to happen, of course. The electric car will<br />
remain strictly an urban vehicle in the foreseeable future,<br />
and the heavy highway gas guzzler will become a<br />
thing of the past because we’re going to run out of oil.<br />
So if you want to call for an alliance of reason, please<br />
be more honest.<br />
Engel: That’s a good example to get a serious discussion<br />
of the problems going. Okay, let’s talk about<br />
“We in the<br />
chemical<br />
industry, at<br />
least, are<br />
striving to<br />
reconcile<br />
economic,<br />
environmental,<br />
and social<br />
needs”<br />
Klaus Engel<br />
DEBATING 9<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
10 DEBATING<br />
“We probably<br />
lost the battle<br />
against global<br />
warming<br />
long ago”<br />
Thilo Bode<br />
Meeting in Essen:<br />
Greenpeace and Foodwatch<br />
activist Thilo Bode (left)<br />
poses critical questions to<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> CEO Klaus Engel<br />
in a debate hosted<br />
by Manfred Bissinger<br />
the hype associated with the electric car. Obviously<br />
a lot of what’s being propagated now is of a dubious nature<br />
and questionable from an objective point of view.<br />
I would much prefer it if we realized that electric vehicles<br />
are an option that will give us the confidence to<br />
solve a key future issue, rather than hyping them like<br />
the bubbles we’ve all seen burst in the past. The fact<br />
is that we can’t get people to abandon their desire for<br />
individual mobility—not here and not in the emerging<br />
markets. And if we’re going to take sustainability seriously<br />
over the long term, we have to accept the fact<br />
that fossil fuel resources are finite.<br />
Oil most of all?<br />
Engel: Definitely—and there are much better uses for<br />
oil than simply burning it in an automobile.<br />
Bode: In 2020 we will have perhaps one million electric<br />
cars on the road in Germany and six million worldwide.<br />
That’s the pitiful reality. The other reality is that<br />
all the additional oil that’s been extracted since 2000<br />
has come from offshore wells, and we’re all familiar<br />
with the dangers and risks involved with those. Just<br />
think about Deepwater Horizon and the Gulf of Mexico.<br />
For that reason alone, we’re only deluding ourselves<br />
if we think that individual mobility will still be<br />
the same in 30 years as it is today, only electric. So the<br />
industry is not coming clean with consumers. What we<br />
need to do right now is to drastically reduce the fuel<br />
consumption of automobiles.<br />
Engel: Electric drives represent one option for making<br />
the individual mobility of the future more environmentally<br />
friendly. The other option is to develop<br />
technologies that conserve fuel. Think about how long<br />
we’ve been talking about hydrogen. I’m not trying to<br />
play off one option against the other; I’m just saying I<br />
think various options are important. What I definitely<br />
don’t want to see is a situation where we fail to act in<br />
time, and then one day start demanding that a new<br />
technology be developed in five years because oil has<br />
now really become scarce, prices are increasing, and<br />
social tension is rising. It takes decades to develop alternative<br />
technologies. That’s why I’m optimistic about<br />
electric mobility. I’m also aware that the petroleum industry<br />
has forfeited a great deal of credibility because<br />
of Deepwater Horizon. We can’t allow such things to<br />
occur if we want the risks and opportunities associated<br />
with our technology to be assessed free of ideological<br />
bias. If industry says something is safe, then it has to<br />
be safe. However, even the worst setbacks should not<br />
be allowed to stop us from seeking an open dialogue.<br />
And that should be the case whether the issue is electric<br />
mobility, nanotechnology or biotechnology. I don’t<br />
mean to be trite here, but at the end of the day, life itself<br />
is perilous.<br />
Bode: At least the Deepwater Horizon disaster has<br />
directed massive attention to the fact that automobiles<br />
will remain linked to oil for many years to come.<br />
As a consequence, we urgently need to reduce fuel<br />
consumption.<br />
Has Deepwater Horizon also been a disaster for<br />
lobbyists—and did they mislead the U.S. government<br />
by giving it a false sense of security?<br />
Bode: The situation with lobbyists is a permanent catastrophe.<br />
Governments are already allowing business<br />
to determine policy to a large extent—and this is happening<br />
at every level.<br />
Engel: Mr. Bode, aren’t NGOs also lobbies?<br />
Bode: Absolutely—we’re lobbyist organizations, no<br />
doubt about it.<br />
Engel: There’s nothing wrong with lobbying per se…<br />
Bode: …you’re absolutely right. Constitutionally<br />
speaking, there have to be lobbies because the government<br />
cannot make proper decisions by itself. A democratic<br />
government actually has an obligation to listen<br />
to different interest groups, consider their proposals,<br />
and then make decisions in the interest of the common<br />
good. However, the lobbying power of NGOs is nothing<br />
compared to that of industry, with its political donations,<br />
privileged access to politicians, personal relationships<br />
with government officials, and threats to<br />
eliminate jobs.<br />
So what do you propose?<br />
Bode: We have to stop deluding ourselves that an appeal<br />
to morality will cause companies to conduct business<br />
with sustainability in mind. What we need are<br />
sustainability-minded entrepreneurs who also regard<br />
themselves as good citizens. And I may be talking more<br />
like a capitalist than you now, but what’s being delegated<br />
today to corporations, to so-called global responsibility,<br />
is customer fraud.<br />
Engel: That doesn’t help much in terms of solving<br />
problems.<br />
Bode: You’re right—and that’s why you also need to<br />
be extremely careful with noble claims such as “We<br />
corporations are taking on global responsibility.” The<br />
chemical industry cannot save the world! Sometimes<br />
it’s better to set your sights a little lower.
Dr. Engel, does this mean that you’re about to<br />
take on a new responsibility?<br />
Engel: To be completely open and personal here, I<br />
did a lot of soulsearching while I was trying to decide<br />
whether I should run for president of the German<br />
Chemical Industry Association. I have a pretty busy<br />
workday. I don’t suffer from boredom—we face a lot of<br />
big challenges at the company. In the end, I decided to<br />
make myself available because there are a lot of overlapping<br />
issues that are worth addressing. I’m taking on<br />
this responsibility because I’m convinced we need to<br />
make it clear to the public that Germany must remain<br />
an industrial nation.<br />
Bode: Is anyone questioning that?<br />
Engel: Mr. Bode, you’d be surprised by the kinds of discussions<br />
we have to face these days…<br />
Bode: … with whom?<br />
Engel: With neighbors, employees, political parties,<br />
and NGOs. For example, with regard to questions like:<br />
Where are we planning to build new power plants in<br />
the near future? What kind of plants will they be? What<br />
type of infrastructure do we need to have? Anti-industry<br />
sentiment has grown in our country, but we nevertheless<br />
need to have manufacturing industries.<br />
Bode: I’m entirely on your side here. Germany must<br />
and should remain an industrial nation.<br />
Engel: There’s also another point that’s important to<br />
me: It’s time we took a balanced view of the opportunities<br />
and risks associated with technology. This applies<br />
to nearly everything we do every day, but it’s especially<br />
important in terms of the chemical industry.<br />
There are a great many things whose continued development<br />
is worth fighting for—for example, biotechnology<br />
and nanotechnology. Of course there are examples<br />
of where things have gone wrong, but the fact is that<br />
the only way we can overcome the great challenges we<br />
face is if scientists and engineers achieve technological<br />
progress. Yes, we also need to change the way people<br />
in our society behave and reach a new consensus<br />
on our value priorities and the way we should live our<br />
lives. But we also have to take into account the fact—as<br />
we talked about before—that we won’t be able to keep<br />
people in the emerging markets from having a television,<br />
a second car, or a steak dinner. So we need consensus<br />
on this matter as well. Yes, we see the risks, and<br />
we understand that regulation is necessary—for example,<br />
we need to make sure that no one is seriously affected<br />
by our chemical production activities. The ef-<br />
“ And if we’re going to take<br />
sustainability seriously over the<br />
long term, we have to accept<br />
the fact that fossil fuel resources<br />
are finite” Klaus Engel<br />
fect on people, the environment, and natural resources<br />
should be as beneficial as possible. I plan to work on<br />
that, but there’s no way I want to create the illusion<br />
that we can maintain our prosperity, not to mention<br />
increase it, without consuming resources and without<br />
risk. Making such a claim would be like promising<br />
to square a circle.<br />
So you are talking about an alliance of reason after all.<br />
But what is the goal?<br />
Engel: I want to help further develop and expand the<br />
magic triangle between ecology, economy, and social<br />
needs. For me, that means we need to talk to each other<br />
without bias and with respect, as we have done in this<br />
discussion. That’s how we learn from one another.<br />
Bode: My goal is not to appeal to people to become<br />
better human beings. Instead the important thing is to<br />
shape progress in a way that leads to an honest consideration<br />
of various interests that allows governments to<br />
make truly autonomous decisions. Ultimately, my vision<br />
is one of a democracy that actually functions the<br />
way it should.<br />
DEBATING 11<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
12 DEVELOPING<br />
German Chemicals<br />
Take On the World<br />
Today’s new markets lie on the other side of the globe from Europe. New players from China,<br />
India, and the Middle East are moving onto the international chemicals stage. How is the<br />
German chemical industry responding to the challenge? <strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine looks at the sector<br />
TEXT MICHAEL KÖMPF, CAROLINE ZÖRLEIN<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010<br />
cules to form long chains, bind carbon with fluorine, or<br />
join aluminum atoms with nitrogen. Such detailed processes<br />
at the molecular level have their counterparts in<br />
the chemical industry’s activities in the macrocosm of<br />
the global economy. Practically no other industry has<br />
as extensive an international network, or has played<br />
such a pioneering role in globalization. Today, oil, natural<br />
gas, lithium, and phosphorus are shipped around<br />
the world, as are their primary and intermediate products.<br />
These substances are then processed around the<br />
globe into insulating boards, dashboards, medicines,<br />
and batteries. Chemicals are a major part of our daily<br />
lives. They’re with us when we brush our teeth, work<br />
on our laptops, drive our cars, or take a painkiller to relieve<br />
a headache. The chemical industry is also a key<br />
sector of the global economy. The special thing about<br />
this sector is that its small and medium-sized companies<br />
are seldom suppliers; they’re more likely to be customers<br />
of major corporations.<br />
Germany’s chemical industry is ranked fourth in the<br />
world, behind the U.S., China, and Japan. “Germany is<br />
also the largest producer of chemicals in Europe, with<br />
a share of 25 percent of total production,” says Dr. Utz<br />
Tillmann, Director General of the German Chemical<br />
Industry Association (VCI). Due to the economic crisis,<br />
the country exported “only” €123.2 billion worth of<br />
chemicals in 2009, as compared to €139 billion in 2008.<br />
More than 60 percent of Germany’s chemical exports<br />
remain within the EU, where the largest recipients are<br />
Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Some 12 percent<br />
of the chemical exports are shipped to Asia to meet the<br />
rising demand there. Whereas the production of basic<br />
chemicals is handled by around 150 large companies,<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: BASF SE CHEMISTS ARE NETWORKERS: They link mole-<br />
the German chemical processing industry encompasses<br />
some 1,900 small and medium-sized firms.<br />
German chemical companies are still growing more<br />
rapidly and profitably than their international rivals.<br />
“Nevertheless, the pressure to adapt structures has<br />
grown as a result of the economic and financial crisis,<br />
and this pressure will significantly change the chemical<br />
industry landscape in the years ahead,” says Dr.<br />
Wolfgang Falter, Managing Director of the AlixPartners<br />
GmbH consulting firm. Falter also predicts a significant<br />
shift of the focus of power in the chemical market:<br />
“We’re going to see a shift from the world’s leading<br />
markets—North America, Western Europe, and Japan—<br />
to the growth duo of the Middle East and Asia.” As an example,<br />
he cites the automotive industry, a key market<br />
for the chemical sector. Whereas the demand for automobiles<br />
is basically stagnating in Western Europe, it is<br />
growing rapidly in China and India. That’s why these<br />
countries are becoming the location of choice for new<br />
production facilities.<br />
Where demand is growing<br />
The number of new consumers in China and India who<br />
are pushing up the demand for chemicals due to their<br />
rising incomes is set to skyrocket over the next few<br />
years. The situation is exactly the opposite in Europe.<br />
“European populations are declining, which means that<br />
fewer products that require chemicals, like cars and refrigerators,<br />
are being bought,” says Thomas Rings, a<br />
partner at the A.T. Kearney GmbH consulting company.<br />
However, demographic transformation also presents a<br />
challenge to China, as no other emerging market is aging<br />
as rapidly as that country. In the Middle East, on the<br />
other hand, a new and dynamic society is coming of
BASF:<br />
LUDWIGSHAFEN<br />
Ludwigshafen is BASF’s largest<br />
production location worldwide<br />
Catalysis research is carried out at<br />
the “Chemicals Research and<br />
Engineering” competence center<br />
at the Ludwigshafen location.<br />
Laboratory Director Dr. Godwin<br />
Mabande is one of the 33,000 employees<br />
at BASF Ludwigshafen.<br />
The ten-square-kilometer site is<br />
home to the company’s headquarters<br />
and the center of its research<br />
and production<br />
DEVELOPING 13
14 DEVELOPING<br />
BAYER: SHANGHAI<br />
The plant in the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park<br />
is Bayer’s largest foreign investment project<br />
Bayer has a production facility for the<br />
polycarbonate Makrolon at the Shanghai<br />
(China) location. In the polycarbonate<br />
color laboratory, the chemists Polo Zou (left)<br />
and Jenny Yan (right) work on the color<br />
chips made of Makrolon. These color chips<br />
are used in quality control and when<br />
new colors are being developed. Bayer has<br />
approximately 21,600 employees in the<br />
Asia-Pacific economic region<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
PHOTOGRAPHY: BAYER<br />
DEVELOPING 15<br />
Competition among the new<br />
chemical-producing nations has begun<br />
age. AlixPartners predicts that the share of global<br />
demand for chemicals that is accounted for by China<br />
(not counting the pharmaceutical or petroleum industries)<br />
will rise from the current 9 to 15 percent by 2020.<br />
The firm’s experts also estimate that the Middle East’s<br />
share of demand will rise from 4 to 12 percent during<br />
the same period, while the figure for Western Europe<br />
will fall from 25 to 18 percent. The demand for chemicals<br />
is in fact rising in Western Europe, but the markets<br />
outside the region are simply growing much faster.<br />
In the passing lane<br />
“Together with the establishment of extensive new production<br />
capacity, the cost benefits in the Middle East<br />
will put substantial pressure on manufacturers of basic<br />
chemicals and plastics,” says Tillmann. The rapidly<br />
growing companies in the Middle East region are exporting<br />
more of their products to China, and they’re<br />
also moving into Western markets. They are taking full<br />
advantage here of their proximity to sources of oil and<br />
natural gas, as well as their large brand-new facilities.<br />
According to AlixPartners, the Middle East alone will<br />
expand the global market capacity for polyolefins such<br />
as polyethylene and polypropylene (key raw materials<br />
for the chemical industry) by eight percent by the end of<br />
2010. The companies in this region are being helped by<br />
the expansive economic policies of their governments.<br />
The share of global economic activity that is accounted<br />
for by the developing countries and emerging markets<br />
will soon surpass that of the traditional industrialized<br />
nations for the first time. The weighting for these aspiring<br />
nations will reach 57 percent by 2030, according<br />
to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and<br />
Development (OECD).<br />
Trying to describe the German chemical industry as a whole is like trying to explain the range of<br />
products in a large department store: There’s simply everything. In keeping with this analogy, you<br />
can also say that the chemical industry even includes architects and construction companies—like<br />
those who help build department stores. The German Chemical Industry Association (VCI) alone represents<br />
some 1,600 German chemical companies and German subsidiaries of foreign corporations,<br />
whose areas of expertise range from the development of highly specialized additives to the planning<br />
and construction of process engineering facilities. Plastics, medications, pesticides, creams, oils,<br />
glues, paints, and detergents are also part of the industry’s portfolio. The list goes on and on—and the<br />
competition in the international chemical sector is very fierce<br />
The future leaders of the global chemical market can already<br />
be clearly discerned today: “Cheap raw materials<br />
and rapidly growing sales markets have provided companies<br />
in the East with a solid foundation for moving into<br />
the global market,” says Falter. Relatively new players<br />
from the Middle East and Asia, such as Saudi Basic <strong>Industries</strong><br />
Corporation (SABIC), China Petroleum & Chemical<br />
Corporation (Sinopec), and the Indian company Reliance<br />
<strong>Industries</strong> Limited have embarked on a path of<br />
rapid growth and are on the verge of taking over the<br />
top positions in the global chemical industry. “Companies<br />
that started out as petroleum processing firms later<br />
moved into basic polymers and are now specialty chemical<br />
enterprises,” says Rings. These new global players<br />
are also benefiting from state-of-the-art industrial facilities.<br />
“Although German plants have been optimized to<br />
an extent that makes them world champions of energy<br />
efficiency, many of them are 20 years old,” says Oliver<br />
Rakau, an economist and chemical industry expert at<br />
Deutsche Bank Research. “What’s more, factories in the<br />
Middle East are being built right next to oil wells.” Major<br />
market advantages are also being achieved through<br />
the extremely low raw material costs associated with<br />
“stranded gas”—small natural gas fields for which the<br />
construction of pipelines to consumer regions would<br />
be unprofitable. On top of that, South America—especially<br />
Brazil—is now looking to advance further in the<br />
global chemical club.<br />
Still, most German companies have done their<br />
homework very well. “In terms of growth and profitability,<br />
they’ve outperformed chemical companies in<br />
the U.S., Japan, and the rest of Asia on the world market<br />
and during the latest crisis,” says Falter, who also points<br />
out that the German chemical industry has created<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
16 DEVELOPING<br />
The German chemical industry<br />
has done its homework<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: KARSTEN BOOTMANN<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010<br />
competitive revenue and cost structures over the<br />
past 20 years. “The chemical sector increased its revenues<br />
by 57 percent to €176 billion between 1995 and<br />
2008,” Falter reports. Companies have consistently<br />
taken advantage of growth opportunities in international<br />
markets, thus stabilizing their positions in their<br />
home markets, according to Falter. A further element of<br />
their strategy is energy and resource efficiency. “Over<br />
the past 20 years, the chemical industry in Germany has<br />
reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 37 percent, despite<br />
doubling its production,” says Tillmann.<br />
Major German companies have long since stopped<br />
thinking in terms of nationality, as BASF, Bayer AG,<br />
Linde AG, Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, Lanxess AG, <strong>Evonik</strong><br />
<strong>Industries</strong> AG, Wacker <strong>Chemistry</strong> AG, and others are<br />
now focusing on attaining international technology<br />
leadership in their respective fields. These days, they<br />
not only generate most of their revenue abroad but are<br />
also shifting their still balanced workforce numbers for<br />
employees at home and abroad in favor of their growing<br />
international production locations.<br />
Speaking at the 2010 BASF Annual Meeting, the<br />
company’s CEO, Dr. Jürgen Hambrecht, predicted that<br />
“50 percent of the future growth of the chemical industry<br />
will take place in Asia.” BASF, the leading chemical<br />
company in the global rankings, has therefore set itself<br />
ambitious goals, such as achieving annual growth<br />
in the Asia-Pacific region that is two percentage points<br />
higher than that of the market and generating 70 percent<br />
of its regional revenues with local production. This<br />
will require capacity expansion, and to this end BASF<br />
will invest $1.4 billion in the expansion of its Nanking<br />
facility in China. Bayer AG—Germany’s second-largest<br />
chemical company in terms of revenues—is also stepping<br />
up its activities abroad. Between 2006 and 2009, the<br />
company increased its workforce in the BRIC countries<br />
(Brazil, Russia, India, and China) by more than 40 percent,<br />
to 15,000. Bayer also plans to invest €2.1 billion<br />
between now and 2012 solely for capacity expansion at<br />
its MaterialScience subgroup in China. In addition, the<br />
company is investing €100 million in a pharmaceutical<br />
research center in Beijing.<br />
Step by step into global markets<br />
The German presence is thus growing throughout the<br />
dynamic Asian region—and <strong>Evonik</strong> is no exception. In<br />
Shanghai, for example, <strong>Evonik</strong> has invested approximately<br />
€250 million in a facility for producing methyl<br />
methacrylate (MMA), which is used to manufacture<br />
PLEXIGLAS. The plant is part of a networked installation<br />
at a huge chemical park on the outskirts of Shanghai.<br />
“Despite the economic crisis, we made the secondlargest<br />
investment in our company’s history because we<br />
believe in China’s future,” explains <strong>Evonik</strong>’s CEO, Dr.<br />
Klaus Engel. Medium-sized companies aren’t idly standing<br />
by either: “Small and medium-sized companies are<br />
now specializing in specific products and thus focusing<br />
on a smaller group of customers,” says Tillmann. One<br />
approach that usually works is for small companies to go<br />
global through their relations with globally active major<br />
customers in their home market. This helps them avoid<br />
teething problems and financial losses.<br />
The chemical sector is generally well prepared to<br />
cope with the increasing global competition. The German<br />
chemical industry’s solid position is largely due to<br />
the structural transformation that has taken place over<br />
the past few years. Throughout most of their histories,<br />
German chemical companies were highly integrated
EVONIK: THE NETHERLANDS<br />
Almost 300 employees at five locations worldwide work on products<br />
and solutions which are marketed under<br />
the brand names COLORTREND and CHROMA-CHEM<br />
The <strong>Evonik</strong> Business Unit Coatings & Additives comprises a<br />
total of 21 production locations and technology centers<br />
worldwide. Patrick Peeters is employed by the Colorants<br />
Product Line. He works in Maastricht (The Netherlands)<br />
in the Color Service Department, which develops the color<br />
recipes for the paint and coatings industry. <strong>Evonik</strong> Colortrend<br />
B.V. has approximately 100 employees in Maastricht<br />
DEVELOPING 17<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
18 DEVELOPING<br />
MERCK: MEXICO CITY<br />
Products for the Latin American pharmaceuticals market are<br />
manufactured in the Mexican capital<br />
The quality of the pharmacological raw materials<br />
is controlled in the Manufacturing Conditioning<br />
of Injectable Substances & Liquids department.<br />
Chemists Estela Estrade and David Arias check the<br />
quality in the Raw Materials Laboratory. Merck<br />
has 1,300 employees in Mexico<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
PHOTOGRAPHY: MERCK<br />
entities that covered the entire value chain—from<br />
raw materials such as ethylene and naphtha to pharmaceutical<br />
agents and bulk plastics. Two processes then<br />
began to occur around 20 years ago. The first was horizontal<br />
specialization, which saw major chemical companies<br />
with strong roots in their respective home markets<br />
transform themselves into global leaders in their<br />
segments that are continually expanding their core areas<br />
of expertise. The other development was vertical<br />
deconstruction—i.e. the outsourcing of units and services<br />
such as logistics, maintenance, human resources,<br />
data processing, and even customer relations. Complex<br />
internal corporate structures were thus reorganized<br />
with the goal of creating flat and virtual value creation<br />
networks. Both processes would ultimately help make<br />
German companies successful around the world. Companies<br />
today are focusing more and more on attaining or<br />
maintaining market leadership in individual segments.<br />
Wacker <strong>Chemistry</strong> is a good example: Although it’s only<br />
ranked 12th in the German chemical industry in terms<br />
of revenue, the company is number three in the world<br />
for silicone production—and the world market leader for<br />
silicone for building protection applications.<br />
“Horizontal integration isn’t over yet, however,” says<br />
Tillmann, who points out that takeovers, acquisitions,<br />
and spinoffs are still common in the submarkets. This<br />
trend will continue in the future. “After a decline in takeovers<br />
last year, we’re once again seeing more active buyers<br />
and sellers on the market,” says Dr. Volker Fitzner, a<br />
chemical industry expert at PricewaterhouseCoopers.<br />
The pressure to consolidate varies among the market<br />
segments, however. “Whereas the agrochemical sector<br />
is almost completely consolidated, there’s a high level of<br />
consolidation pressure in cosmetic industry raw mate-<br />
rials, for example,” says Rings. A recent example of this<br />
is provided by the BASF takeover of Cognis. Rings expects<br />
Chinese companies to get more involved in mergers<br />
and acquisitions in the future: “The only surprising<br />
thing is that this isn’t already happening on a large scale.<br />
But it’s possible that China first wants to consolidate its<br />
own highly fragmented specialty chemicals industry—<br />
and there’s a lot of movement in that market now.”<br />
Independence through specialization<br />
Specialization and specialty chemicals are the buzzwords<br />
today—and <strong>Evonik</strong> has gotten the message as well.<br />
“Our plan for <strong>Evonik</strong> is to focus on the specialty chemicals<br />
sector,” says Engel. Such a focus allows the company<br />
to more strongly disengage itself from the risks associated<br />
with fluctuating raw material prices, and from<br />
oil in general. “Specialized expertise is becoming much<br />
more important, whether it’s attained through innovative<br />
technologies or greater access to selected industrial<br />
value chains,” Rings explains. This requires bettertrained<br />
personnel, as Tillmann points out: “Knowledge<br />
is the raw material we’re using to shape the future of our<br />
society, and countries that invest more in their innovative<br />
capability end up doing better economically.”<br />
Knowledge, education, and research: It’s all about<br />
intellectual raw materials, which are especially important<br />
for the success of countries with few resources,<br />
such as Germany. However, this source of raw material<br />
could also dry up quickly. “The shortage of young engineers<br />
and natural scientists will grow over the next few<br />
decades,” says Rings, “so we need to take countermeasures<br />
here as well.” The focus on specialized markets<br />
requires even more, however: “The important thing<br />
is to have a well-functioning infrastructure,” says<br />
DEVELOPING 19<br />
Today’s specialists<br />
don’t necessarily need oil<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
The Globalization of the German<br />
The largest customer is the European Union<br />
Chemical Industry UK<br />
7.5<br />
The<br />
Netherlands<br />
4.9<br />
With the global trade in chemicals continuing to grow and the international division of labor<br />
increasing, German companies are at the forefront of the industry's development<br />
What the world needs<br />
Germany exported chemicals and pharmaceuticals<br />
with a total value of €139 billion in<br />
2008. This included nearly €92 billion worth<br />
of goods from the chemical industry, with<br />
fine and specialty chemicals accounting for the<br />
lion’s share due to their high value-added.<br />
Important fields for the future are energy<br />
efficiency, environmental technology,<br />
alternative fuels, biotechnology, and nanotechnology.<br />
Germany enjoys a particularly<br />
good starting position in nanotechnology.<br />
The export ratio is growing<br />
Chemical products from Germany are increasingly<br />
developing into a leading export. With a growth rate of<br />
nearly ten percent per year over the last four years,<br />
exports have grown more than twice as fast as the German<br />
chemical industry's total sales. In 1990 less than every<br />
second metric ton was shipped abroad, but now exports<br />
account for more than 80 percent of total production.<br />
As the world’s largest exporter of chemical products,<br />
Germany will continue to benefit in the future from the<br />
dynamism of the global chemistry markets.<br />
Sectors in comparison<br />
A comparison with other sectors, in particular,<br />
also underscores the very important role that<br />
foreign business plays for the chemical industry.<br />
Foreign business accounts for a share of about<br />
60 percent, making it about as important to the<br />
chemical industry as it is to the automobile<br />
and mechanical engineering industries. Many<br />
other sectors—including the glass and ceramics<br />
industry, foodstuffs or metal products manufacturing—are<br />
not nearly as globally oriented<br />
as the chemical industry and concentrate more<br />
strongly on the German market.<br />
The chemicals Germany ships to<br />
destinations around the world<br />
Pharmaceuticals 47.5<br />
Chemicals 91.7<br />
- Basic inorganic chemicals 10.1<br />
- Petrochemicals and derivatives 21.5<br />
- Polymers (plastics) 23.5<br />
- Fine and specialty chemicals 27.6<br />
- Laundry, personal care products 9.0<br />
Total value 2008 139.2<br />
ALL FIGURES IN BILLIONS OF EUROS<br />
Foreign sales and sales of various industry sectors in 2009<br />
70<br />
50<br />
30<br />
10<br />
0<br />
0<br />
Exports make up an increasing<br />
share of sales<br />
80<br />
60<br />
40<br />
20<br />
1982 1990 2000 2008<br />
ALL FIGURES IN PERCENT<br />
Other automotive<br />
manufacturing<br />
Medical, I&C technology<br />
Radio, television, communications<br />
technology<br />
Paper<br />
Manufacturing of power generation equipment<br />
Rubber Metal production<br />
Glass, ceramics<br />
Furniture<br />
Metal products manufacturing<br />
Publishing, printing sector<br />
SHARE OF FOREIGN SALES AS A PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL SALES<br />
SOURCE: VCI<br />
SOURCE: VCI<br />
Food, tobacco processing<br />
The trend toward fine<br />
and specialty chemicals<br />
Basic chemicals are increasingly being produced<br />
where raw materials such as oil and gas are<br />
found. Germany will focus more intensively on<br />
the production of specialty products, which require<br />
a higher level of expertise and make better<br />
value-added possible. With tailored products,<br />
the German chemical industry has good opportunities<br />
to contribute to areas such as energy and<br />
resource efficiency. Even more important in this<br />
regard are networks with customers, which generate<br />
precisely targeted innovations. The future<br />
will not be only about new materials; systems<br />
with high functionality will play the central role,<br />
with the synthesizing power of nature being harnessed<br />
with increasing frequency through the<br />
use of white biotechnology.<br />
Worldwide sales of<br />
fine and specialty chemicals<br />
600<br />
500<br />
400<br />
300<br />
200<br />
414.6<br />
Worldwide sales<br />
2002 2004 2006 2008<br />
ALL FIGURES IN BILLIONS OF EUROS<br />
Mechanical engineering<br />
Automobile<br />
manufacturing<br />
Chemical industry<br />
Total sales in billions of euros<br />
100 200 300 350<br />
SOURCE: STATISTISCHES BUNDESAMT, IKB<br />
543.7<br />
German sales<br />
40<br />
37.4<br />
30<br />
27.9<br />
20<br />
2002 2004 2006 2008<br />
SOURCE: DESTATIS, VCI<br />
63.3 percent of Germany’s chemical exports go the EU-27. This corresponds<br />
to goods with a value of more than €88 billion for 2008. The most important trading<br />
partners are our direct neighbors: Belgium, followed by France, the<br />
Netherlands, and Italy. Germany was the world’s largest exporter for the sixth time<br />
in a row in 2008, benefiting greatly from its proximity to Eastern Europe.<br />
Exports to North<br />
America/NAFTA<br />
nations<br />
€14.3<br />
billion<br />
Latin America<br />
€8.7 billion in sales by German chemical<br />
companies from local production<br />
Exports to Latin<br />
America<br />
€3.5<br />
billion<br />
Investments by the<br />
chemical-pharmaceutical industry<br />
North America/<br />
NAFTA nations *<br />
*North American Free Trade Agreement between the<br />
USA, Canada, and Mexico<br />
€45.7 billion in sales by German chemical<br />
companies from local production<br />
Spain<br />
4.9<br />
Exports to EU-27<br />
€88.1<br />
billion<br />
The German chemical<br />
industry is going global<br />
Between 1999 (initial values) and 2008 (fi nal values),<br />
German chemical exports have generated very impressive<br />
growth rates, in some cases of more than 100 percent<br />
Foreign direct investment by the German chemical-pharmaceutical industry is an important metric for its<br />
globalization. In 2008 they totaled €44.4 billion. The greatest investments were made in the<br />
USA (€10.1 billion), France (€3.6 billion), Switzerland and Belgium (€2.9/€1.9 billion). China was in<br />
seventh place, with €1.5 billion. Germany is also an attractive site for investments by foreign chemical<br />
companies. The largest investor in Germany is the Netherlands (€13.9 billion), followed by the UK and<br />
France (€5.3/€4.5 billion).<br />
11.4<br />
Belgium 18.0<br />
11.4<br />
France<br />
9.0<br />
Italy<br />
Poland<br />
4.8Austria<br />
EU-27<br />
Eight countries account for 71.5% of Germany’s<br />
exports to the EU-27. Exports to any of<br />
the remaining countries are valued<br />
at less than €2.5 billion<br />
Economic activity abroad<br />
NAFTA 26.6%<br />
Rest of<br />
Europe<br />
10.1%<br />
EU-27<br />
44.5%<br />
SOURCE: VCI<br />
Foreign<br />
direct<br />
investment<br />
by German<br />
chemical<br />
companies<br />
Latin<br />
America<br />
2.6%<br />
Asia<br />
14.6%<br />
Oceania<br />
0.7%<br />
Africa<br />
0.9%
SOURCE LARGE MAP: VCI; ILLUSTRATIONS: FLORIAN PÖHL, PICFOUR<br />
€58.2 billion in sales by German chemical<br />
c ompanies from local production<br />
8.4<br />
39.3<br />
1.9<br />
1.1<br />
EU-27<br />
D E V E L O P M E N<br />
6.2<br />
7.9<br />
0.6<br />
T O F E X P O R T S<br />
F R O M 1 9 9 9 T O 2 0 0 8<br />
Africa<br />
€2.4 billion in sales by German chemical<br />
companies from local production<br />
Exports to Africa<br />
€2.2<br />
billion<br />
Rest of Europe<br />
€7.3 billion in sales by German chemical<br />
companies from local production<br />
Exports to the<br />
rest of Europe<br />
€14.7<br />
billion<br />
Company<br />
1 BASF SE*<br />
The soft touch<br />
Chemical processes can be optimized through the use of enzymes<br />
or microorganisms. Living cells such as bacteria or yeasts can be<br />
used as tiny "chemical factories.” White biotechnology is playing an<br />
increasingly important role not only in the production of fine<br />
and specialty chemicals, but also for feed additives and agricultural<br />
and pharmaceutical precursors. In addition, it has the potential<br />
to replace fossil raw materials with renewables. White biotechnology<br />
is therefore an extremely interesting field for the German chemical<br />
industry. Worldwide sales of white biotechnology are expected to total<br />
approximately €125 billion in 2010.<br />
Asia<br />
€25.9 billion in sales by German chemical<br />
companies from local production<br />
2009 sales in<br />
€ billion<br />
50.7 104,779<br />
Employees Fields of activity<br />
World’s largest chemical group with a broad<br />
product portfolio<br />
2 Bayer AG 31.2 108,400 Pharmaceuticals, polymers, crop protection<br />
3 Henkel AG &Co.<br />
KGaA<br />
13.6 51,361<br />
Exports to Asia<br />
€15.4<br />
billion<br />
Ranking of the German chemical industry by sales<br />
Detergents and cleansers, cosmetics and personal<br />
care, adhesives and sealants, surface finishing<br />
4 <strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong> AG 13.1 38,681 Specialty chemicals, energy, real estate<br />
5 Boehringer Ingelheim<br />
GmbH & Co. KG<br />
12.7 41,534<br />
Pharmaceuticals, animal health<br />
6 Linde AG 11.2 47,731 Industrial gases, mechanical engineering<br />
7 Merck KGaA 7.8 33,062 Pharmaceuticals and chemicals<br />
8 Beiersdorf AG 5.7 20,346 Consumer goods, skin care<br />
9 Lanxess AG 5.1 14,338 Polymers/rubber, basic and fine chemicals<br />
10 Wacker Chemie AG 3.7 15,618 Silicones, polymers, fine chemicals<br />
11 K + S AG 4.3 15,922 Specialty and standard fertilizers, salt<br />
12 Cognis GmbH*<br />
2.6 5,572<br />
Specialty chemicals for detergents and cleansers,<br />
cosmetics, foodstuffs<br />
*Contingent upon anti-trust approval, BASF will acquire Cognis by the end of 2010<br />
SOURCE: VCI/”DIE WELT”, JUNE 21, 2010<br />
Worldwide sales of white biotechnology products<br />
40<br />
30<br />
20<br />
10<br />
0<br />
Biofuels<br />
Vegetable raw materials<br />
Pharmaceutical active substances<br />
Bulk chemicals, polymers<br />
Foodstuffs and feed<br />
2005 2010<br />
billions of euros<br />
Fats and oils<br />
Enzymes<br />
Other<br />
SOURCE: ASF, BAYER, EVONIK<br />
Australia/Oceania<br />
China, the challenger<br />
The most populous countries—China, Indonesia, and India—are among the fastgrowing<br />
chemical-producing countries in the world. China has shined, posting<br />
average growth rates of 12.8<br />
percent between 2003 and<br />
2008; for India this figure<br />
is 8.6 percent. Another indication<br />
of the growing importance<br />
of China is the fact<br />
that an increasing number of<br />
companies, including BASF,<br />
DuPont, Rhodia, and Dow,<br />
have opened their own research<br />
facilities in the country.<br />
Where the leaders research<br />
The leaders among German<br />
chemical companies are<br />
increasingly developing their<br />
research and development<br />
capacities abroad. <strong>Evonik</strong>, for<br />
instance, employs a workforce<br />
of about 2,300 people<br />
in research and development<br />
at more than 35 locations<br />
around the world.<br />
Research locations<br />
BASF Bayer <strong>Evonik</strong><br />
Exports to<br />
Australia/Oceania<br />
€1.0<br />
billion<br />
German chemical products worldwide<br />
Although the Asian nations, and in particular China, are making appreciable<br />
gains, Europe and the USA are still clearly the largest sales markets for<br />
German chemical products. With a total of €18 billion, Belgium remains the<br />
largest single market, however. Just how rapidly China's hunger for chemicals<br />
is increasing can be seen in the growth that was recorded between 2004<br />
and 2008. During this short period, the value of German chemical exports<br />
doubled, from €1.5 billion to €3 billion, surpassing the result achieved by<br />
Japan (€2.8 billion).<br />
SOURCE: DEUTSCHE INDUSTRIEVEREINIGUNG<br />
BIOTECHNOLOGIE (DIB)<br />
€1.6 billion in sales by German chemical<br />
companies from local production<br />
Chemical production growth rates 2003–2008<br />
12.8 China<br />
12<br />
12.6 Indonesia<br />
8<br />
4<br />
8.6 India<br />
0 ALL FIGURES IN PERCENT<br />
The world’s largest<br />
chemical nations<br />
2008 total sales<br />
in billions of euros<br />
USA<br />
2.8 Germany<br />
China<br />
Japan<br />
187<br />
183 Germany<br />
137 France<br />
91 Brazil<br />
88 UK<br />
80 Italy<br />
68 South Korea<br />
58 The Netherlands<br />
54 India<br />
Total world<br />
EU-27<br />
1.7 USA<br />
0.3 Japan<br />
3.4<br />
Worldwide average<br />
398<br />
504<br />
2,535<br />
770<br />
SOURCE: FERI, VCI<br />
SOURCE: FERI, VCI
20 SHAPING<br />
The New Mantra<br />
More and more pharmaceutical companies are restructuring in today’s globalized world.<br />
They’re no longer doing it all themselves, and outsourcing has become a strategic process<br />
TEXT CHRISTOPH PECK<br />
FABULOUS FORECASTS: Worldwide sales in the<br />
pharmaceutical industry will more than double by 2020<br />
to roughly US$1.3 trillion, according to a study that was<br />
recently carried out by the auditing and consulting firm<br />
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). And the company is<br />
not the only one making this prognosis. Current demographic<br />
developments and economic growth, particularly<br />
in the E7 nations—China, India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia,<br />
Mexico, and Turkey—are setting the pace of<br />
this change, reports PwC. But the experts say that these<br />
predictions come with a caveat: This boom will benefit<br />
only those pharmaceutical manufacturers who succeed<br />
in adapting to radically changed conditions. The manufacturers'<br />
research and marketing activities must be<br />
realigned and more strongly oriented toward medical<br />
needs, the experts insist.<br />
Tippecanoe Laboratories in Indiana, USA. <strong>Evonik</strong> took over the entire<br />
production location from the US pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company<br />
Research, clinical development, and marketing and sales:<br />
These are the areas that a growing number of pharmaceutical<br />
companies define as their core areas of expertise.<br />
Developing a new medication can take up to ten<br />
years and cost up to €1 billion. And then there remains a<br />
period of ten years on average for patent-protected marketing.<br />
The solution to this challenge is that companies<br />
should no longer do everything themselves. Outsourcing<br />
is the industry’s new mantra. “Outsourcing,” says<br />
Dr. Hans-Josef Ritzert of <strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong> AG, “has become<br />
a strategic process for many pharmaceutical companies.”<br />
The Head of the Exclusive Synthesis and Amino<br />
Acids Business Line isn’t worried about the pharmaceutical<br />
industry trend toward outsourcing the production<br />
of intermediate products and active substances—because<br />
that’s exactly what he provides.<br />
At <strong>Evonik</strong>’s Hanau facility the employees who work in exclusive<br />
synthesis wear special protective garments<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: EVONIK INDUSTRIES (3), STEFAN WILDHIRT
<strong>Evonik</strong> Rexim S.A.S. Ham in France is the world leader in<br />
the production of amino acids and keto acids<br />
A pharmaceutical active substance is produced in many<br />
reaction stages, which can be roughly divided into three<br />
sections. First the standard intermediates are produced.<br />
From these are derived the advanced intermediates, and<br />
they in turn are synthesized into the actual active substance.<br />
And what’s exclusive about it? “Exclusive synthesis<br />
simply means made-to-order production that is commissioned<br />
by a customer,” Ritzert explains. And here he<br />
has a few tools at his disposal, ranging from lab-scale synthesis<br />
development to commercial production in China,<br />
Europe, and the USA. “This enables us to offer our madeto-order<br />
production to customers in the places where<br />
it can be most efficiently and most effectively applied,”<br />
says Ritzert.<br />
The complete package<br />
A further milestone in the Business Line’s development<br />
was the acquisition of Tippecanoe Laboratories in Lafayette,<br />
Indiana (USA). In late 2009 <strong>Evonik</strong> took over the<br />
entire production location from the American pharmaceutical<br />
giant Eli Lilly and Company, thus significantly<br />
expanding its technological basis. The processes used<br />
there are based on the requirements of the GMP norms<br />
that are required by law. The GMP is a special quality<br />
standard stipulated by the pharmaceutical industry and<br />
lawmakers. What’s more, the team has many years of experience<br />
in the production of high potency drugs, which<br />
are state-of-the-art medications that can be used in much<br />
lower doses. The team passed the stringent audit of the<br />
US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) once again in<br />
March 2010.<br />
At the end of 2010 the location will be integrated<br />
into the Business Line’s global production and marketing<br />
network, making it “far stronger,” says Dr. Klaus<br />
Engel, Chairman of the Executive Board of <strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong>.<br />
And in China, <strong>Evonik</strong> built a new plant for ac-<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong>’s Nanning location in China. The <strong>Evonik</strong> research team<br />
trains Chinese employees like the one shown here<br />
tive substances production in Nanning, Guangxi province,<br />
in only 15 months. With the German locations in<br />
Hanau and Dossenheim, an additional location in China,<br />
and a facility in France for the production of pharmaceutical<br />
amino acids, the Business Line has become firmly<br />
established in the market as a leading supplier. And,<br />
Ritzert says, it has at its disposal “a network of production<br />
locations with a breadth that makes it very competitive,<br />
because we have the needed critical scale, a broad<br />
technology platform, and experienced employees. The<br />
customers know that their know-how is in safe hands.<br />
The locations complement one another ideally and enable<br />
us to intelligently operate our network of assets.”<br />
Entrusting entire stages of the value chain to outside<br />
companies requires a high level of reliability. The<br />
companies demand a lot from their preferred suppliers.<br />
Quality, performance, flexibility, and guaranteed delivery<br />
must all be flawless. From Ritzert’s point of view,<br />
the role of a preferred supplier goes far beyond just contract<br />
production. “Even though we have been concentrating<br />
more on the advanced intermediates and active<br />
substances in recent years, we know the entire process<br />
and we can offer the complete range of synthesis technologies.<br />
That’s why we begin talks with our customers<br />
as early as possible in the value chain—for example, by<br />
collaborating with them to jointly develop the synthesis<br />
process for the active molecule created in the lab.” Intensive<br />
research into new synthesis processes is being<br />
conducted, often together with pharmaceutical companies.<br />
And brainstorming together doesn’t stop after the<br />
market launch. For instance, it continues when production<br />
processes are optimized so that efficiency gains can<br />
be passed on to the customers. “We support the product<br />
throughout its whole life cycle,” Ritzert says. As a result,<br />
Exclusive Synthesis does more than deliver a product; it’s<br />
a full-service business.<br />
SHAPING 25<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
26 DEVELOPING<br />
EVONIK: SLOVAKIA<br />
Slovenská L’upcǎ is one of four <strong>Evonik</strong> locations<br />
manufacturing amino acids<br />
The amino acids threonine and tryptophane<br />
are produced for animal feed by the Business<br />
Unit Health & Nutrition in Slovakia.<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> is the only supplier in the world to<br />
manufacture all four important amino acids.<br />
Soňa Slobodníková is one of the approximately<br />
170 employees in Slovenská L’upča<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
PHOTOGRAPHY: STEFAN WILDHIRT<br />
Rakau. A solid foundation is provided here by Germany’s<br />
more than 60 chemical manufacturing plants<br />
and 38 chemical parks. The industry utilizes a uniquely<br />
German supply system concept with links to the European<br />
pipeline network. The system, which transports<br />
petroleum, natural gas, naphtha, and basic chemicals<br />
such as ethylene, propylene, and hydrogen, is superior<br />
to those currently in place at many locations in China.<br />
The problem, as Falter recently pointed out in an interview<br />
in CHEManager, is that “there are too many chemical<br />
facilities in Germany with insufficient capacity utilization<br />
and noncompetitive cost structures.” Companies<br />
will also have to do their homework in this regard if they<br />
wish to satisfy internal and external customers with<br />
their facility services.<br />
Cooperating with other industries<br />
Still, industry experts believe that innovation remains<br />
the number one factor for success. “If German chemical<br />
companies want to be successful over the long term,<br />
they need to be at the forefront of innovative developments,”<br />
Tillmann explains. That also means they have<br />
to make sensible use of new technologies such as green,<br />
white, and red biotechnologies, as well as nanotechnology.<br />
Many sector experts criticize what they perceive<br />
to be an anti-innovation climate in Germany. “Speed is<br />
becoming more and more important for the successful<br />
market launch of innovations,” Rings explains. “Only<br />
those companies that quickly position themselves on<br />
the market can move into newly formed markets and<br />
shape the value chains.” Engel also believes that the reservations<br />
regarding new industrial projects pose a danger:<br />
“Industrial production and innovations are indispensable<br />
to our prosperity. The bank crisis may cost<br />
DEVELOPING 27<br />
Innovation remains success<br />
factor number one<br />
us billions—but opposition to industry can cost us our<br />
future.”<br />
Still, with total R&D expenditures of €8.3 billion,<br />
the chemical industry was third in the German rankings<br />
in 2009, behind the automotive industry and the electrical<br />
engineering sector. Such investments are establishing<br />
a good foundation for the future. Innovative capability<br />
could be increased even further in Germany if<br />
different industrial sectors cooperated more closely on<br />
development and market launches. For example, German<br />
chemical companies could work with the automotive<br />
industry to take on a leading role in the electric mobility<br />
sector. The government could help out by granting<br />
tax breaks for research into state-of-the-art technologies,<br />
rather than giving away money with cash-forclunker<br />
programs. This is also the view of Dr. Gunter<br />
Festel, owner of Festel Capital, a Swiss investment and<br />
consulting firm. Festel had the following to say in an article<br />
published by the magazine Chemical Business: “In<br />
terms of research and development, Germany will remain<br />
the location of choice for German chemical companies<br />
for quite some time.” And perhaps the leader in<br />
global chemical innovation as well.<br />
SUMMARY<br />
• The German chemical industry has emerged from the<br />
economic crisis in good shape. However, the development<br />
of global business remains the biggest challenge, because<br />
German companies are increasingly competing with aspiring<br />
firms from Asia and the Middle East. German companies<br />
are focusing on their core business areas and on specialty<br />
chemicals. Industry experts believe that the pressure to adapt<br />
industry structures will grow.<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
GRAPHIC BY PICFOUR, WITH THANKS TO: ACTION PRESS<br />
The Renaissance of the Chemical<br />
A rethinking process has started in Germany. The chemical industry used to spark fi erce debates, but today<br />
THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SEEMS to generate<br />
more contradictory feelings and fierce debates than<br />
any other. The number of Europeans who regard this<br />
industry favorably just about matches the number of<br />
those who watch it with critical eyes. In Germany as<br />
well, 35 percent of the public still has negative feelings<br />
about the chemical industry. On the other hand,<br />
61 percent of Germans now regard the chemical industry<br />
favorably—that’s the highest percentage in the<br />
11 European countries investigated in a recent survey.<br />
By contrast, in France, the second-largest European<br />
location for the chemical industry, only about 36<br />
percent of the public believes the chemical industry is<br />
a good thing.<br />
Actually, the chemical industry seems to have been<br />
struggling with image problems ever since its birth in<br />
the last third of the 19th century. In 1900, Dr. Wilhelm<br />
Bersch concluded in his book Moderne Chemie (Modern<br />
<strong>Chemistry</strong>) that “only one branch of the modern<br />
natural sciences has always been treated like a stepchild—chemistry.”<br />
He attributed this neglect, among<br />
other reasons, to the fact that “chemistry has for centuries<br />
been treated as an occult science.”<br />
Only a few years ago, the chemical industry was often<br />
regarded only as a source of danger that was poisoning<br />
human beings and the environment and was<br />
“out of control”—even though chemicals have for a long<br />
time been an indispensable part of modern life, as well<br />
as a reliable safeguard of German jobs and prosperity.<br />
Today, by contrast, it seems that a more balanced debate<br />
about the risks and opportunities inherent in the<br />
chemical industry is once again possible. Its image has<br />
improved somewhat, especially in Germany, and even<br />
the Greens political party recognizes that the chemical<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010<br />
industry is one of the key sectors of the German economy.<br />
In fact, the German chemical industry includes<br />
approximately 2,000 companies, about 90 percent of<br />
which are small or midsized.<br />
With more than 400,000 employees, it is one of<br />
Germany’s largest employers and a substantial force<br />
in the German labor market. What’s more, the chemical<br />
industry is well known for its highly qualified and<br />
well-paid jobs. The German chemical industry’s leading<br />
position among its global competitors is clearly<br />
reflected, among other things, in its positive export<br />
balance. The German chemical industry is the backbone<br />
of the European chemical industry, accounting<br />
for about 25 percent of total sales in the European<br />
Union. On a global scale, it’s one of the so-called big<br />
four. These statistics are not due to chance—they are<br />
the result of an exemplary combination of outstanding<br />
basic research, highly motivated employees, and intensive<br />
efforts on the part of the industry to promote research<br />
and innovation.<br />
Sustainable products<br />
Today, the German chemical industry is the country’s<br />
third-largest research-oriented industry, spending<br />
more than €8 billion annually on research and development.<br />
This makes it one of the pace-setting drivers<br />
of innovation. Between 1999 and 2009 alone, the<br />
German chemical industry increased its research activities<br />
by 23 percent.<br />
In recent years it has not only conducted research to<br />
create new products and services, but also completed<br />
its entry into the field of sustainable production. This<br />
can be seen in the fact that between 1990 and 2008 it<br />
boosted its production by 58 percent while at the
Industry<br />
people are talking about the multitude of solutions it offers for future problems. An essay by Günter Verheugen<br />
Former EU Commissioner<br />
Günter Verheugen<br />
pleads for an honest discussion<br />
of future perspectives<br />
for the chemical industry<br />
DESIGNING 29
Research expenditures up 23% between 1999 and 2009<br />
“In the past, governments and the media have dealt<br />
with the chemical industry almost exclusively from the<br />
standpoint of risk prevention”<br />
€8 billion spent<br />
annually on<br />
research and<br />
development<br />
same time reducing its energy consumption by 18<br />
percent and its emissions by an impressive 37 percent.<br />
Is it this transformation that explains the solid public<br />
approval of the chemical industry in Germany?<br />
Alternatively, it may be because we have become<br />
more rational and we realize that neither the dental<br />
care we require now and in the future, cancer medicines,<br />
nor any of the other products we need for safeguarding<br />
the future of our societies, would be conceivable<br />
without the analysis of materials and their<br />
conversion processes—in other words, without chemistry.<br />
Or the reason may be that the behavior of the<br />
chemical industry has gradually changed, from a refusal<br />
to discuss risk issues publicly toward a more deliberate<br />
acceptance of social responsibility—something<br />
that cannot be dictated by law but must be shouldered<br />
by the companies themselves.<br />
To me, in any case, it seems that there is a growing<br />
consensus that Germany needs its chemical industry<br />
in the 21st century as it has in the past. This makes it<br />
possible to have a more open and honest discussion of<br />
the opportunities and potential, but also the indubitable<br />
risks, that are associated with this industry and to<br />
jointly develop strategies and solutions.<br />
In the past, governments and the media have dealt<br />
with the chemical industry almost exclusively from the<br />
standpoint of risk prevention. In the process, hardly<br />
any attention has been paid to the fact that the chemical<br />
industry is primarily an enabling industry. It is increasingly<br />
becoming a problem-solver, and with its products<br />
it ensures that modern goods can be produced in the<br />
first place in all the other industrial sectors. Along the<br />
entire industrial value chain, the contribution of the<br />
chemical industry is indispensable. A country like Ger-<br />
400,000 employees in Germany<br />
<strong>Chemistry</strong> h<br />
[ C 5 H 8 =2] n<br />
[ C 5 H 8 =2] n<br />
[ C 5 H 8 =2] n<br />
[ C 5 H 8 =2] n<br />
[ C 5 H 8 =2] n<br />
[ C 5 H 8 =2] n<br />
many, which has a very broadly based industrial sector,<br />
would therefore be making a grave error if it did<br />
not do everything possible to ensure that chemical facilities<br />
remain in the country and are able to continue<br />
their development.<br />
In recent years there have been two major political<br />
initiatives that will have an impact on the future of<br />
the chemical industry not only in Germany but in the<br />
entire European Union. Both of these initiatives originated<br />
in Europe. The first one concerns the European<br />
regulation on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation<br />
and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH). REACH<br />
may be the most demanding piece of legislation that<br />
the EU has ever passed; in any case, it’s certainly the<br />
most complex one. There’s certainly room for argument<br />
concerning the details, and it will definitely be<br />
necessary to correct some errors when REACH is revised,<br />
according to plan, in 2012. But the general direction<br />
in which it is heading is the right one. If REACH<br />
is responsibly implemented by everyone involved, it<br />
should make the overall conditions for the producers<br />
and users of chemical products in Europe more stable<br />
and predictable.<br />
The second initiative concerns the high-ranking<br />
group appointed by the European Commission to confer<br />
about the future of the European chemical industry.<br />
Due to the cooperation of representatives from<br />
the fields of politics, business, science, and civil society<br />
within this group, people in the EU today recognize<br />
that the chemical sector is essential for the economies<br />
of Europe. In a very difficult process of dialogue, the<br />
representatives of industry and public interest groups<br />
moved closer together and arrived at an astonishingly<br />
broad consensus. The fact that in July Belgium, which<br />
Production up 58% between 1990 and 2008
GRAPHIC BY PICFOUR, WITH THANKS TO: ACTION PRESS<br />
holds the current Presidency of the Council of the European<br />
Union, conducted a major conference on the<br />
future of the European chemical industry shows that<br />
we are moving in the right direction.<br />
A multitude of challenges confront us at the beginning<br />
of the 21st century. They include the need to make<br />
hunger and disease in most parts of the world a thing<br />
of the past and open up reliable prospects of future development<br />
and prosperity for most of the world’s population;<br />
the need to protect our environment and continue<br />
the struggle against climate change; the need to<br />
ensure the safety of industrial plants and the technological<br />
infrastructure; and the need to put a stop to international<br />
organized crime. Only by exhausting all the<br />
potential of modern chemistry will it be possible for us<br />
to master these challenges. It is precisely for this reason<br />
that chemistry, in the words of Prof. Gérard Férey<br />
of the French Academy of Sciences, is a “science of life<br />
and of hope.”<br />
There’s no such thing as “zero risk”<br />
But in order to live up to this definition we have to become<br />
more free of ideology. It’s no use to condemn the<br />
chemical industry’s high share of energy consumption,<br />
which can reach 60 percent in the case of certain<br />
products. What we must focus on is to reduce energy<br />
consumption to the minimum that is physically and<br />
technologically feasible. It’s also no use to condemn<br />
the production of chlorine because of its generation of<br />
toxic products as long as we work with chlorine in areas<br />
such as our public swimming pools. However, what<br />
we must insist on is that our companies have state-ofthe-art<br />
emission purification processes so that the air<br />
we breathe stays clean. Nor can we go on allowing ourselves<br />
to believe in “zero risk,” which does not exist in<br />
real life. What we need instead are strategies for clearly<br />
assessing and evaluating risks—the same kinds of risks<br />
we tolerate when it comes to medications.<br />
There is no technology that has only positive or only<br />
negative aspects. That’s why no technology should be<br />
utterly condemned from the very start—as we did for a<br />
long time with biotechnology, thus almost missing our<br />
opportunity to participate in its development. What<br />
are we going to do with the realization that the world’s<br />
food supply, especially that of the poorest nations, will<br />
in all probability depend on genetic engineering? This<br />
being so, is it still morally and ethically responsible to<br />
completely reject it out of hand? Wouldn’t it rather be<br />
our duty to participate in the worldwide research being<br />
done in this field, even though it may ultimately result<br />
in the well-founded conclusion that this technology<br />
cannot deliver the hoped-for solutions?<br />
We won’t make any progress in the cutting-edge<br />
chemistry of the 21st century if we block off areas of<br />
research and promote taboos, because this segment of<br />
chemistry is still in its infancy. Where will we find the<br />
Energy consumption down 18% between 1990 and 2008<br />
raw materials of the future? We will find them in the<br />
earth, insofar as we have access to it. And we will certainly<br />
find them through recycling as well as through<br />
new materials, in other words alternative materials—<br />
something we’re very much pinning our hopes on. But<br />
many of these materials, for example nanomaterials,<br />
are still waiting to be developed. The cars of the future<br />
will need such new materials, and people who<br />
place their hopes in the electric car will also need the<br />
battery of the future in order to be mobile. And such a<br />
battery has not yet been developed to the stage of series<br />
production.<br />
The important thing is that the German chemical<br />
industry does not miss this opportunity, because this<br />
new industrial revolution, which must bring with it the<br />
transition to a resource-efficient economy that produces<br />
a minimum of CO 2, will radically shake up the<br />
present-day structure of our industry. We don’t know<br />
how much of the basic chemicals sector that we know<br />
today will survive. What we do know is that a technological<br />
leader can survive in the fast-growing markets<br />
of today and tomorrow, and that it will reap profits not<br />
only by safeguarding local jobs but also by exporting<br />
progress. But in order for that to happen, the chemical<br />
industry needs the right governmental regulations,<br />
especially for the many small and midsized companies<br />
that depend on a policy that focuses on their interests.<br />
We will also have to ensure that there’s more<br />
fairness in international competition, because neither<br />
Germany nor Europe alone will be able to bring about<br />
the necessary structural transformation in the worldwide<br />
chemical industry.<br />
If we address this issue with a sense of proportion,<br />
we can demonstrate that it’s worthwhile to invest in the<br />
environment and in sustainable production processes—<br />
in jobs, in new eco-friendly products and services, and<br />
in the promotion of our natural environment. In order<br />
to succeed in this endeavor, it’s essential that we continue<br />
our alliance with science, which has been the secret<br />
of our past success.<br />
In addition, in this century as well, the German<br />
chemical industry needs people with science degrees<br />
and enthusiasm. However, it also needs such people to<br />
be aware of their responsibility for society as a whole,<br />
so that research and innovation do not stagnate and we<br />
continue on our course toward a sustainable economy.<br />
That applies to managers as well as employees. And finally,<br />
the chemical industry also needs us—a critical<br />
general public and a critical discourse—so that it continues<br />
to be forced to present its results to the public.<br />
The International Year of <strong>Chemistry</strong> 2011, which<br />
was declared by the United Nations, offers us a full<br />
range of opportunities to achieve all that. What this<br />
means is that the renaissance of the chemical industry<br />
is already well under way in Germany, but the best<br />
is yet to come.<br />
DESIGNING 31<br />
61% of<br />
Germans<br />
approve of the<br />
chemical<br />
industry<br />
(but 35% still<br />
have a negative<br />
attitude)<br />
Emissions<br />
down 37%<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
PHOTOGRAPHY: MCLAREN AUTOMOTIVE<br />
32 SHAPING<br />
<strong>Chemistry</strong> Gives Automobiles Wings<br />
New materials and technologies are ushering in a new age of automotive design, and permanently changing
the way we look at mobility TEXT MARKUS HONSIG<br />
MCLAREN MP4-12C The super sports car looks like<br />
an earthbound fl ying machine. The world’s fi rst seriesproduced<br />
carbon fi ber monocoque builds a bridge between<br />
the aviation and automotive industries<br />
SHAPING 33<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
34 SHAPING<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: OBS/PORSCHE, STEFAN WILDHIRT, VOLKSWAGEN AG, BMW GROUP<br />
PORSCHE 918 SPYDER Extreme hybrid with a carbon fi ber monocoque,<br />
a V8 engine, two electric motors, 718 hp, and three liters/100 km<br />
LONGSTANDING EXPERTS like Walter Röhrl know<br />
every kilogram counts when you want to achieve outstanding<br />
handling and performance. That’s why Röhrl<br />
removes everything he believes is not absolutely necessary<br />
in the cars he works on, like the Porsche 964 RS, the<br />
Audi A2, and VW bus models. He takes out rear benches,<br />
panels and covers in the engine compartment and interior,<br />
spare wheels, and heater blowers. “It makes a difference<br />
whether a car weighs 1,200 or 1,150 kilos,” says<br />
Röhrl, who conducts highly specialized test drives for<br />
Porsche. Every kilo taken away increases the precision<br />
and efficiency of braking, steering, and accelerating. Responses<br />
to pedal and steering movements are more accurate<br />
and nimble, braking distances get shorter, and<br />
cornering speeds faster. Lighter vehicles also consume<br />
less fuel. Röhrl not only has gifted driving hands but also<br />
a well trained sense of cost control and environmental<br />
protection. It’s therefore no surprise that this rally legend<br />
is very pleased by the trend toward lightweight automotive<br />
design, “even though it shouldn’t necessarily<br />
have required hybridization and electrification to make<br />
it happen,” as he points out.<br />
Still, better late than never—and the time has now<br />
come for consistent advanced lightweight design, especially<br />
as CO2 emissions are directly linked to vehicle<br />
weight: 100 kilograms more or less translates into<br />
0.3 liters higher or lower consumption per 100 kilometers.<br />
Lightweight design is also important because there<br />
aren’t many other levers left for enhancing vehicle efficiency.<br />
It comes down to aerodynamics, drive systems,<br />
and weight. Moreover, the electric cars for future mobility<br />
now being developed by every automaker already<br />
carry a heavy load: their battery. The rule of thumb is<br />
that every kilometer of increased range means at least<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010<br />
LOTUS EXIGE Weight reduction of 75 kilograms—with help from <strong>Evonik</strong>.<br />
Lower weight means better driving dynamics and lower fuel consumption<br />
one kilo of additional weight. Lightweight design is thus<br />
becoming a core discipline in automobile development.<br />
As a result, plastic composites will also become more<br />
important, and account for a greater proportion of vehicle<br />
weight. This applies to interior equipment and outer<br />
shells, induction pipes, rear windows, headlights, and<br />
high-tech adhesives that can replace bolts, rivets, and<br />
welds. <strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong> has demonstrated the potential<br />
involved here many times—in the Golf V (–371 kilograms),<br />
for example, and in the already quite lean Lotus<br />
Exige (–75 kilograms). In June, <strong>Evonik</strong> opened a new<br />
lightweight design studio in Darmstadt to present specific<br />
applications for the new synthetic materials.<br />
The vehicle body is one of the most effective levers<br />
for implementing a radical automotive diet. Although<br />
steel will remain the material of choice for some time,<br />
alternatives are already on the horizon. Manufacturing<br />
processes for carbon fiber-reinforced plastics (abbreviated<br />
to CFRP or CFP) appear to have advanced to a stage<br />
that would allow production at a reasonable cost. Vehicle<br />
architectures are also changing, as consistent lightweight<br />
construction requires new designs, while small,<br />
simple, and light electric motors are giving designers<br />
more freedom than ever before—and vice versa. Basically,<br />
what belongs together is now coming together.<br />
Material competition<br />
The latest example here is BMW’s Megacity Vehicle,<br />
which is scheduled for market launch in 2013. The electric<br />
car, designed mainly for urban driving, is a model for<br />
the future of lightweight construction. The car consists<br />
of two clearly separate and independent modules: the<br />
“Drive Module,” which integrates the battery, drive system,<br />
structure, and crash components into a com-<br />
Plastic, carbon fibers,
GOLF V <strong>Evonik</strong> demonstrated the lightweight design potential for plastics in<br />
a Golf V: –371 kilograms—a diet on a grand scale<br />
and chemicals are making cars lighter than ever before<br />
BMW MEGACITY VEHICLE BMW is planning the world’s fi rst mass production<br />
vehicle to be equipped with a carbon fi ber body that will fully offset the additional<br />
weight of the electric car’s battery. The Megacity Vehicle will hit showrooms in 2013
36 SHAPING<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: WOO-RAM LEE, MCLAREN AUTOMOTIVE, ARTEGA AUTOMOBIL GMBH, 2010 SMART TECHNOLOGIES ULC<br />
The new era of automobile design is upon us—and we’re<br />
pact chassis unit; and the “Life-Module,” which basically<br />
consists of an occupant cell made of carbon fiber (as<br />
CRP is often referred to). This simple and flexible design<br />
may not only permanently change the automobile as we<br />
know it but also the production processes used to make<br />
it. The two modules can be built independently from one<br />
another and then joined together quickly and easily practically<br />
anywhere in the world. BMW enhanced its carbon<br />
fiber expertise in the fall of 2009 by establishing a joint<br />
venture with the SGL Group, one of the world’s leading<br />
manufacturers of carbon products. “The MCV will<br />
be the world’s first mass production vehicle with a carbon<br />
occupant cell,” says Dr. Klaus Draeger, BMW Board<br />
of Management member responsible for Development.<br />
“Together with our LifeDrive architecture, the car will<br />
enable us to open a new chapter in automotive lightweight<br />
design, as it allows us to offset virtually all of the<br />
extra weight typical of electric vehicles. And here we’re<br />
talking about 250 to 300 kilograms”<br />
The MCV will be preceded by a completely different<br />
type of vehicle—the new 600-hp MP4-12C super<br />
sports car from McLaren. Along with its outstanding performance<br />
(0–200 kilometers per hour (km/h) in under<br />
ten seconds; top speed of well over 300 km/h), this<br />
vehicle stands out through a carbon fiber monocoque<br />
that weighs less than 80 kilograms and is thus 25 percent<br />
lighter than a comparable aluminum chassis. Despite<br />
this lean design, the monocoque offers unbeatable<br />
torsional rigidity and stability as well as safety that can’t<br />
be matched. What’s new here is that the McLaren monocoques<br />
are being produced in relatively high numbers<br />
(plans call for 4,000 units per year), but at a relatively<br />
low cost. In fact, the 12C monocoque can be built for less<br />
than 10 percent of what it costs to produce a hand-made<br />
CARBON FIBER MONOCOQUES The perfect basic cell for<br />
extreme lightweight design and use of state-of-the-art plastics<br />
PEUGEOT<br />
MOVILLE The ultramobile<br />
one-seater<br />
of the future not only<br />
drives on the power<br />
of magnets but can also<br />
communicate with<br />
other vehicles
ARTEGA GT The niche sports car has an aluminum chassis and a plastic body. This lightweight<br />
design can be implemented by both small and large-scale manufacturers<br />
a part of it<br />
Formula 1 cockpit. This is the first time such a vehicle<br />
will be manufactured in a true series production process,<br />
which is set to begin next year. The monocoques will be<br />
built by Carbo Tech, an Austrian company specializing in<br />
high-end carbon fiber components. “We’ve automated<br />
what was previously a manual production process, and<br />
we now manufacture highly integrated components,”<br />
says Carbo-Tech CEO Karl Wagner. Preparatory work<br />
on new measures for further automation has long been<br />
under way—and “the McLaren 12 C is the ideal interim<br />
step here.”<br />
In principle, a monocoque offers the perfect foundation<br />
for aggressive lightweight design—and not just<br />
for sports cars. Because the monocoque fulfills practically<br />
all structural requirements, the design of the extensions<br />
added to it can focus solely on weight reduction<br />
and aerodynamic efficiency. With the 12C, this translates<br />
into aluminum for the hood and roof, and glass-fiber<br />
reinforced plastics for all other body parts. In absolute<br />
numbers, the McLaren 12C will weigh around 1,300<br />
kilograms—much less than an Audi R8 with an aluminum<br />
space frame body. McLaren is promising that the model<br />
will be the world’s most efficient sports car, with CO 2<br />
emissions well below 300 grams per kilometer.<br />
Prof. Frank Henning calls the McLaren 12C “an<br />
earthbound flying machine”—not just because of its outstanding<br />
acceleration but also because it’s something of<br />
a missing link between the aviation industry, which has<br />
extensive experience with the manual processing of carbon<br />
fiber-reinforced plastics, and the automotive industry,<br />
which is well-versed in the industrial processing of<br />
steel. The latter still has a lot to learn about new materials.<br />
Henning is deputy director of the Fraunhofer Institute<br />
for Chemical Technology, as well as the profes-<br />
SHAPING 37<br />
SMART ELECTRIC DRIVE Small, light, and effi cient, it<br />
offers the best conditions for drive system electrifi cation<br />
sor for Lightweight Technologies at Karlsruhe Institute<br />
of Technology. “The key questions will be which processes<br />
make the most sense for CFRP in series production<br />
and what sort of stress-related dimensioning of the<br />
components it will be possible to deduce as a result,”<br />
he explains. In addition, “a consistent lightweight approach<br />
means automobiles and their components must<br />
be designed with as clear a specific application in mind<br />
as possible.”<br />
Reducing weight<br />
Numerous examples illustrate what’s possible when<br />
man-made fibers are used in an appropriate and targeted<br />
manner in automobiles. Some are still in the prototype<br />
stage, but probably not for long. The recently presented<br />
Artega GT is not a prototype, but instead a lightweight<br />
sports car already on the market. It has an aluminum/<br />
steel chassis, a space frame, and the first-ever body to be<br />
made exclusively of the plastic polyurethane. The latter<br />
was developed in cooperation with former BASF subsidiary<br />
Elastogran. Such cars can only be produced in<br />
small batches “because tool costs are low as compared<br />
to steel,” says Peter Müller, Chief Operating Officer of<br />
Artega Automobil, which was founded in 2006 in Delbrück.<br />
Another development is the T.27 electric car from<br />
Gordon Murray, the former chief designer at McLaren.<br />
The vehicle weighs less than 700 kilograms (including<br />
the battery), and the completely new production process<br />
used to build it seeks to reinvent not only the automobile<br />
but also the way it’s manufactured. The chassis,<br />
including all drive system and crash components, is prefabricated;<br />
the plastic body is simply put on over it. The<br />
Heuliez Mia was originally a French development, but<br />
has recently been taken over by the German energy<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
38 SHAPING<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: MATUS PROCHACZKA, SIPA PRESS, MINDSET HOLDING AG, TOYOTA DEUTSCHLAND GMBH, EVONIK INDUSTRIES<br />
MIA A creation of star designer Murat Günak, this electric car with a<br />
bolted plastic body weighs only a little over 600 kilograms<br />
services provider Conenergy and pharmaceutical<br />
entrepreneur Professor Edwin Kohl. Thanks to a plastic<br />
body, the Mia weighs just a little over 600 kilograms.<br />
Like the Mindset electric car, whose development has<br />
been temporarily halted, the Mia was designed by a star<br />
of the industry—Murat Günak, a former chief designer<br />
for Peugeot and Volkswagen, who has now moved outside<br />
established circles to bring to life his vision of the<br />
car of the future.<br />
What such examples teach us—besides the fact that<br />
the future belongs to lightweight vehicles—is that when<br />
the use of electric motors begins reducing the importance<br />
of highly complex mechanical engineering, and<br />
new materials do the same with expensive steel processing<br />
techniques, exciting new opportunities arise for<br />
small and flexible manufacturers. These companies can<br />
stimulate a market that is characterized by a lot of inertia<br />
through the introduction of new ideas, concepts, and<br />
vehicles. The prospects are without a doubt exciting in<br />
every respect.<br />
The magic formula: Multi-material design<br />
Over the last few years, we have been told that the law<br />
governing the progress of automotive development dictated<br />
that cars would become heavier and heavier. One<br />
company, however, refused to accept this seemingly indisputable<br />
law, and was surprisingly left alone by the<br />
competition : Lotus. The latest successful example of its<br />
approach is the new Elise, which weighs only 876 kilograms.<br />
This low weight is due, on the one hand, to very<br />
restrictive equipment and, on the other, to a consistently<br />
implemented lightweight design that includes an aluminum/steel<br />
chassis, carbon fiber crash boxes, and a glass<br />
fiber body. Although equipped with only a small 1.6-<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010<br />
MINDSET Another Günak creation: The vehicle’s avant-garde electric-car<br />
design features a plastic body and a PLEXIGLAS roof<br />
liter, 136-hp engine, the lean racing machine accelerates<br />
from 0–100 km/h in 6.5 seconds, has a top speed<br />
of more than 200 km/h, and consumes no more than<br />
6.3 liters of fuel per 100 km under normal driving conditions.<br />
It’s hard to imagine another vehicle that delivers<br />
so much sports car performance without having to feel<br />
guilty about the environment—especially when you consider<br />
the unbeatable enjoyment that a “lightweight” like<br />
the Elise has to offer. It’s therefore no coincidence
TOYOTA VENZA Multi-material design. Use of a clever material mix has<br />
enabled Lotus Engineering to reduce the vehicle’s weight by 38 percent<br />
MAGNETIC VEHICLE<br />
CONCEPT In the future, a<br />
magnetic drive system linked to an<br />
electric motor will be installed in<br />
a vehicle that travels on roads also<br />
equipped with magnetic fi elds.<br />
The result will be a reduction of as<br />
much as 50 percent in vehicle weight<br />
SHAPING 39<br />
The Future Will Be Light<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong>’s new lightweight design studio in Darmstadt<br />
Chemical industry products will<br />
become increasingly important<br />
in future automotive development<br />
processes. <strong>Evonik</strong> is presenting<br />
practical examples of such chemical<br />
applications—for aviation and<br />
solar technologies as well—at its<br />
new lightweight design studio<br />
in Darmstadt. “We want to be able<br />
to demonstrate clearly to our customers<br />
and project partners what<br />
our products can do,” says Rudolf<br />
Blass, head of the Automotive &<br />
Surface Design industry segment<br />
in the Acrylic Polymers Business<br />
Line at <strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong>. Blass is<br />
referring here to products such<br />
as Rohacell, Vestamid, and PLEXI-<br />
GLAS—basic materials for intelligent<br />
lightweight design. This issue<br />
is not only attracting growing<br />
interest among automotive supplier<br />
companies but “also among<br />
end customers—the automakers,<br />
where interest is being expressed<br />
by both engineering and<br />
design departments.” The most<br />
fascinating products here include<br />
PLEXIGLAS glazing, which can<br />
reduce weight. “Our development<br />
people are working on customized,<br />
adapted solutions—such<br />
as those for car side windows—<br />
that employ different material concepts<br />
and offer different types of<br />
functionality.”<br />
In the lightweight design studio: Rudolf Blass (left) and Gregor Hetzke, head<br />
of Performance Polymers, present the PLEXIGLAS windshield for the Lotus Exige
40 SHAPING<br />
LOTUS ELISE The sleek sports car with a dead weight of only<br />
876 kilograms served as a model for the electric Tesla Roadster<br />
that Elise serves as the basis for what is currently the<br />
hottest item on the electric car market: the Tesla Roadster.<br />
Lotus’ development subsidiary, Lotus Engineering,<br />
used a Toyota Venza—an SUV currently unavailable in<br />
Germany—to perform calculations that led to the realization<br />
that lightweight design can be employed for vehicles<br />
other than sports cars. The company developed<br />
scenarios for significantly reducing the weight of a large<br />
vehicle at a reasonable cost. The scenario for 2020 envisions<br />
an impressive weight reduction of 38 percent,<br />
assuming a total weight excluding drive system components<br />
of 1,290 kilograms, at a cost increase of only three<br />
percent. The body alone, currently made solely of steel,<br />
could be made 161 kilograms lighter by lowering the<br />
number of individual components and utilizing an intelligent<br />
material mix (37 percent aluminum, 30 percent<br />
magnesium, 21 percent composites, seven percent highstrength<br />
steel). This magic formula for applied lightweight<br />
construction is known as multi-material design.<br />
Once you lower body weight, you can, for example, also<br />
redimension the entire chassis area—and permanently<br />
reverse the trend toward heavier vehicles.<br />
SUMMARY<br />
• The future of automotive design belongs to lightweight<br />
construction. Lower weight means lower fuel consumption<br />
and a longer range for electric vehicles.<br />
The importance of the chemical industry for automobile<br />
production is therefore continually increasing. New<br />
technologies and materials are giving designers more<br />
freedom than ever before—and also requiring them<br />
to completely rethink the principles behind automobiles<br />
and their production processes.<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: 2010 LOTUS ELISE<br />
Major Flirt<br />
<strong>Chemistry</strong> is playing an ever-greater role in<br />
automobiles, and the chemical and automotive<br />
industries are facing new challenges as<br />
a result. Is it love or a marriage of convenience?<br />
TEXT CHRISTIANE OPPERMANN<br />
THE FUTURE belongs to lightweight electric vehicles<br />
powered by high-performance batteries. More than one<br />
million of these electro-mobiles are expected to be on<br />
the road in Germany in just a decade. These sleek machines<br />
will be made of high-quality materials produced<br />
by the chemical industry. Instead of being driven by loud<br />
engines with four, six, eight, or 12 cylinders, they will<br />
be powered by a battery that feeds energy to a noiseless<br />
electric drive system. The core expertise of automakers<br />
will then no longer be required: Fine tuning of<br />
combustion engines with their piston rods, camshafts,<br />
and cylinder heads will become superfluous, as will 125<br />
years of experience in the optimization of engine output<br />
and fuel economy—not to mention the development of<br />
countless assembly steps that reach their pinnacle at the<br />
assembly line, where the glorified industrial-romantic<br />
marriage between chassis, engine, and bodyshell once<br />
took place.<br />
The quantum leap in drive system technology will<br />
reshuffle the playing field on global markets. The automotive<br />
industry will be joined by a new player—one<br />
it paid very little attention to in the past: the chemical<br />
industry. Even today, chemicals are a part of every vehicle,<br />
and the European automotive industry procures<br />
five percent of the total volume of chemicals produced<br />
in the European Union. Companies like BASF, Lanxess,<br />
and Solvay now generate more than 10 percent of their<br />
revenues through business with automakers. Still, the relationship<br />
between the industrial partners has suffered,<br />
according to a chemical industry survey conducted in the<br />
fall of 2009 by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in cooperation<br />
with the European Chemical Marketing and<br />
Strategy Association (ECMSA). This estrangement became<br />
clear during the recent economic crisis after auto<br />
industry sales in Europe fell by 11 percent in 2009. Because<br />
automakers and their suppliers began depleting<br />
their inventories to gain liquidity, the sales decline had<br />
a much stronger impact on manufacturers of plastics,<br />
paints, rubber, textiles, and similar products.<br />
In addition, the chemical industry’s business with<br />
the automotive sector yielded low margins because the<br />
automakers and original equipment manufacturers are<br />
subject to price pressures themselves. According to the<br />
consultants from Berger, the drop in margins was accel-
erated by new competitors from the emerging markets<br />
of the Middle East and Asia. The new capacity in the industry<br />
thus began to exceed demand. The consultants<br />
believe that more than anything else, differences in corporate<br />
strategies put a huge strain on relations between<br />
automakers, their main suppliers, and chemical companies,<br />
with the latter seeking to achieve a high level of<br />
product standardization, as well as longer product cycles,<br />
in order to fully utilize their capacities. The automakers,<br />
on the other hand, plan according to their model<br />
strategies, and demand constant innovation and shorter<br />
product cycles.<br />
These conflicts persisted in the past because the parties<br />
refused to talk to one another—like partners in a dysfunctional<br />
marriage. The Berger study quoted a divisional<br />
director of a European chemical manufacturer as<br />
follows: “If we were to have direct discussions with original<br />
equipment manufacturers, we’d run into trouble<br />
with our direct customers.” Still, new initiatives like the<br />
National Platform for E-Mobility now require a change of<br />
thinking on both sides, as well as a greater willingness to<br />
engage in discussion. Greatly improved economic conditions<br />
are also facilitating a rapprochement.<br />
The true heroes<br />
The “vale of tears” has passed and the chemical industry<br />
is back on its feet again, having increased sales by 16 percent<br />
in the first half of 2010. “Positive developments have<br />
now reached our sector,” Dr. Ulrich Lehner, president of<br />
the German Chemical Industry Association, said at the<br />
organization’s half-year press conference in July. Specialist<br />
firms in the widely diverse chemical industry can be<br />
particularly optimistic about the future. Such specialists<br />
include manufacturers of carbon fiber-reinforced plastics<br />
(CFRPs), which are already used in aircraft production.<br />
These companies are very much in demand among<br />
automakers as business and discussion partners. Daimler,<br />
for example, is now cooperating with the world’s<br />
leading carbon fiber producer, Japan’s Toray <strong>Industries</strong>.<br />
Carbon fiber plastics are up to 50 percent lighter than<br />
steel and aluminum and are extremely impact resistant.<br />
They are also expensive, however, as a kilo of carbon<br />
costs around €15, while the same amount of steel costs<br />
only one euro or so. Mass automobile producers continue<br />
to rely on high-strength steel, and even Audi plans<br />
to stick with aluminum for the time being. Still, it makes<br />
good business sense for the automobile manufacturers<br />
and their suppliers to maintain direct contact with chemical<br />
companies. That’s because even with conventional<br />
designs, savings potential can be exploited through the<br />
use of modern materials, like PLEXIGLAS for glazing,<br />
mirrors, and interior trim, as well as new-generation adhesives<br />
like <strong>Evonik</strong>’s Dynacoll/Dynapol, whose bonds<br />
are just as stable as the welds or rivets that have been<br />
used to date. Hard foams like ROHACELL are lighter than<br />
steel or aluminum, but can withstand the same stresses,<br />
if not more. However, the true heroes in the most important<br />
mobility segment of the future will be manufacturers<br />
of powerful energy storage units—the hearts of the<br />
new electric vehicles. The capacity and volume of these<br />
units will determine how far customers can travel with<br />
their electric cars. There are now around half-a-dozen<br />
of these specialists around the world with the capability<br />
of building batteries that meet the tough requirements<br />
of putting an extremely high storage capacity into a relatively<br />
small space, and delivering not only a long service<br />
life of more than a decade but also reliable stability<br />
in the event of a crash. It’s not only the weight of the batteries<br />
that make them the biggest hurdle when it comes<br />
to electric-car production but also their price. After all,<br />
the battery for a small urban electric vehicle will likely<br />
cost around €10,000 just by itself.<br />
The <strong>Evonik</strong> subsidiary Li-Tec Battery GmbH is one<br />
of the companies on the cutting edge of developments<br />
here. Li-Tec is the only German manufacturer of such<br />
batteries in a high-tech market otherwise consisting of<br />
a half-dozen Korean and Japanese firms. Li-Tec has also<br />
been working with a high-profile partner for the last two<br />
years: Daimler AG, whose CEO, Dieter Zetsche, explains<br />
the reason for the partnership as follows: “We are convinced<br />
that Li-Tec is the leading supplier of lithium-ion<br />
technology.” In line with this assessment, Daimler has acquired<br />
a 49.9 percent stake in the company. That number<br />
speaks for an equal partnership—and the Daimler-<strong>Evonik</strong><br />
deal could mark the dawn of a new era for the chemical<br />
industry. As a major supplier of key components, Li-Tec<br />
will now also help shape the development of e-mobility.<br />
The two partners still have to get used to their new roles,<br />
which require that they learn to plan and talk with one<br />
another. Indeed, those who try to do too much too soon<br />
risk a “war of the roses.”<br />
SHAPING 41<br />
Scenes from a marriage<br />
Only close partnerships ensure success on the automotive market<br />
Increase in<br />
cooperation<br />
0. Focus on<br />
direct buyers<br />
Today<br />
6–12 months<br />
12–24 months<br />
> 24 months<br />
I. Manufacturer<br />
integration<br />
II. Strategy<br />
focus<br />
III. Businesscase<br />
driven<br />
IV. Common<br />
value chain<br />
The current strategy among automakers in the USA, Japan, China, and Europe is to<br />
build vehicles tailored to customer requirements. However, the Japanese and<br />
Europeans will have an edge when it comes to the establishment of a common value<br />
chain for manufacturers and suppliers in the future<br />
SOURCE: „FUSING THE VALUE CHAINS“ BY<br />
ROLAND BERGER STRATEGY CONSULTANTS
42 EXPERIENCING<br />
The Battle of the Backyard<br />
Many Germans immediately get up in arms whenever an industrial project is being planned—even if<br />
the plans call for a biogas facility or wind turbine. A report on an intensifying confl ict<br />
TEXT KLAUS JOPP PHOTOGRAPHY CATRIN MORITZ<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010<br />
THINGS HAVE QUIETED DOWN in Schlenke, a former<br />
residential community that slumbers silently in the<br />
morning sun. Back in the 1950s, 146 rental apartments<br />
and 29 family homes were built here in close proximity<br />
to the shaft of the Brassert Mine in western Marl, between<br />
huge waste heaps and the Marl <strong>Chemistry</strong> Park.<br />
The Schlenke community was originally built as a temporary<br />
solution for housing the coal miners of the Brassert<br />
neighborhood, and it was no longer needed after the<br />
mine was closed in the early 1970s. But none of the residents<br />
wanted to move away—not even ten years ago,<br />
when the first discussions were held about expanding the<br />
Marl <strong>Chemistry</strong> Park to the west into areas that had long<br />
been earmarked for this purpose. The Schlenke community<br />
stood in the way of the industrial park’s expansion,<br />
but Germany’s laws were continually amended until<br />
the emissions standards and the regulations for the protection<br />
of residential property had become so strict that<br />
companies were even prevented from building some production<br />
facilities on their own premises. The dispute with<br />
the Schlenke residents lasted about ten years, until the<br />
Marl city council finally changed the regional utilization<br />
plan in March 2010. After years of wrangling, the area is<br />
now again available for industrial use, as was originally<br />
planned, and the empty houses are scheduled to be torn<br />
down for the industrial park by the end of this year.<br />
The former inhabitants have found new homes in the<br />
Gartenstadt neighborhood of Marl’s Drewer-Süd district.<br />
“We compensated the inhabitants for changes they had<br />
made to their homes and paid for the move. The plots of<br />
land were provided by a predecessor firm of <strong>Evonik</strong> Immobilien<br />
GmbH,” says Uta Heinrich, a lawyer and former<br />
mayor of Marl who played a key role in ensuring that the<br />
westward expansion of the industrial park is now within<br />
reach. Volkhard Czwielong, who has been working at Infracor<br />
GmbH for about ten years, also strove tirelessly to<br />
make the expansion possible. A subsidiary of <strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong><br />
AG, Infracor is a key element of the new Site Services<br />
Organization, which combines <strong>Evonik</strong>’s chemicalsrelated<br />
services.<br />
A special combination<br />
Czwielong heads the site development and geodata management<br />
units at Infracor, which operates the chemistry<br />
park. The industrial park is located at the northern edge<br />
of the Ruhr region, next to the Lippe River. Its area of<br />
6.5 hectares makes it one of the largest integrated facilities<br />
in Germany, encompassing more than 900 buildings,<br />
100 production facilities, and 55 kilometers of roads.<br />
Thirty companies use the Marl <strong>Chemistry</strong> Park’s infrastructure<br />
and services, which can be summed up in impressive<br />
figures: Besides the roads, the industrial park has<br />
100 kilometers of tracks, a harbor at the Wesel-Datteln<br />
Canal, 1,200 kilometers of pipelines, 30 kilometers of<br />
pipe bridges, 70 kilometers of canals, three power plants,<br />
and two sewage treatment plants. Such locations are in<br />
great demand in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries<br />
because the combination of facilities, companies,<br />
and employee experience and expertise creates many<br />
advantages in areas such as energy efficiency and product<br />
supply. “We still have unoccupied plots of land on<br />
our premises, but the largest property available for construction<br />
covers only 20,000 square meters. Potentially<br />
world-scale facilities need between 50,000 and 100,000<br />
square meters,” explains Czwielong.<br />
Uta Heinrich has also given the industrial park’s expansion<br />
her unequivocal support, even though she faced<br />
an uphill battle. “My party pushed through a city
EXPERIENCING 43<br />
Uta Heinrich, a former<br />
mayor of Marl, and<br />
Volkhard Czwielong<br />
from Infracor GmbH<br />
support the expansion of<br />
the Marl <strong>Chemistry</strong> Park
44 EXPERIENCING<br />
The construction of the world’s largest coal-fi red monobloc<br />
burner for the E.ON power plant in Datteln is very controversial<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010<br />
A building permit has been issued for the planned highway<br />
bridge across the Moselle (montage), but criticism continues<br />
council resolution requiring all of Schlenke’s residents<br />
to agree to a move before they could be relocated.<br />
My fellow city council members from the Christian Democratic<br />
Party passed this resolution in the knowledge that<br />
it would be impossible to reach an amicable settlement<br />
with about 20 percent of the inhabitants.” But after Heinrich<br />
was reelected as an independent in local elections<br />
in 2004, the Marl city council passed a positive resolution<br />
allowing the westward expansion to be started in<br />
2005. The Christian Democrats on the city council voted<br />
against the expansion, while the Social Democrats, the<br />
Free Democrats, and the Marl Citizen’s Union were in favor<br />
of it. The mayor then tipped the scales with her vote,<br />
which pitted her against her former fellow party members.<br />
“If you’re talking to potential investors at the industrial<br />
park and they ask what the residential community is<br />
doing over there, you can’t just tell them that we’ll decide<br />
the matter in three to five years. If you do that, chemical<br />
companies will just go elsewhere,” says Heinrich.<br />
Protests, objections, and lawsuits<br />
In late 2008 the Higher Administrative Court in Münster<br />
removed the last obstacles to the expansion by rejecting<br />
the suit of the Schlenke community’s last inhabitant and<br />
stating that its decision could not be appealed. The judges<br />
ruled that the city of Marl had a legitimate interest in safeguarding<br />
manufacturing jobs and that it could therefore<br />
relocate the inhabitants of Schlenke, by force if necessary.<br />
The court also stated that the community was not built<br />
so that its inhabitants could live in pristine natural surroundings—it<br />
was built to house mine workers, but it was<br />
no longer needed for that purpose. Despite her success,<br />
Uta Heinrich was not reelected in the next local election.<br />
“The media agitated against me endlessly. Luckily my job<br />
as a lawyer makes me independent, or I could have never<br />
put up with so much hostility,” she says.<br />
These days industrial and infrastructure projects are<br />
always accompanied by protests, objections, and protracted<br />
legal disputes. “Although industrial production<br />
and innovations are indispensable to our prosperity, we<br />
indulge ourselves in the luxury of letting lose a hail of<br />
objections and complaints against almost every new industrial<br />
and infrastructure project,” says Dr. Klaus Engel,<br />
CEO of <strong>Evonik</strong>. Michael Vassiliadis, Chairman of the<br />
Mining, Chemical and Energy Industrial Union (IG BCE),<br />
also warns against the growing hostility toward industrial<br />
projects. “We’re facing a new situation in which people<br />
no longer debate matters objectively, but instead resist<br />
projects with an almost religious fervor,” says Vassiliadis,<br />
who calls on lawmakers to restrict the participation<br />
rights of professional objectors.<br />
Throughout Germany, resistance is particularly intense<br />
against construction of new coal-fired power<br />
plants. The environmental organization Friends of the<br />
Earth Germany (BUND) is therefore delighted that 11 of<br />
31 proposed plants have already been successfully scuttled.<br />
One of the most controversial projects is Block 4<br />
of the E.ON power plant in Datteln, just a few kilometers<br />
from the Marl <strong>Chemistry</strong> Park. Construction of the<br />
world’s largest coal-fired monobloc burner with a net<br />
output of 1,055 megawatts began in 2007. The facility<br />
would consume 20 percent less fuel than the previous<br />
generation of power plants. Over €1.2 billion is to be<br />
invested in the facility. In exchange for building the big<br />
new power plant, E.ON plans to shut down older facilities<br />
in Datteln (Blocks 1 to 3) and in other parts of the<br />
Ruhr region. In September 2009 the Higher Administrative<br />
Court in Münster ruled that the building permit<br />
for the power plant was invalid even though work on it<br />
was by then well advanced. The court ruled that the city<br />
of Datteln should have chosen a different location for the<br />
power plant. In June 2010 the regional government rejected<br />
a petition by BUND to have the construction work<br />
stopped completely. E.ON can therefore continue to build<br />
the boiler house and the turbine hall, but not external facilities<br />
such as the coal and ammonia storage buildings.<br />
Cases similar to the one in Datteln can be found<br />
throughout Germany. As a result, the German Association<br />
for the Energy and Water <strong>Industries</strong> (BDEW) recently<br />
warned that increased use of renewable energy<br />
sources could suffer setbacks, although they are being<br />
advocated as alternatives to coal- and gas-fired power<br />
plants. “Without new grids, there won’t be any growth<br />
in the use of renewable energy sources,” says Hildegard<br />
Müller, Chair of the BDEW Executive Board. In a<br />
study published in 2005, the German Energy Agency<br />
(Dena) stated that 850 kilometers of extra high-voltage<br />
power lines would be needed to transmit wind energy<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: PICTURE ALLIANCE/DPA (2)
from the coast along the North and Baltic Seas to the centers<br />
of energy consumption. Only 90 kilometers of these<br />
power lines have been completed to date. What’s more,<br />
the Dena study assumed that renewable energy sources<br />
would account for 20 percent of electricity production<br />
in 2020, but the government has now increased this target<br />
to 30 percent. “Everyone’s in favor of electricity from<br />
renewable sources, but they want it only if the required<br />
electricity pylons aren’t visible from their living room<br />
windows,” says Müller. The BDEW is therefore calling<br />
for a campaign to increase people’s acceptance of infrastructure<br />
measures by pointing out the link with renewable<br />
energy sources.<br />
The bridge and the Moselle wines<br />
Transportation projects also spark lengthy conflicts. For<br />
example, 40 years ago the authorities began to consider<br />
measures for linking Belgium’s major population centers<br />
with the Rhine-Main region. They concluded there<br />
should be a crossing of the Moselle River near the village<br />
of Ürzig. After several lawsuits had been resolved, an unrestricted<br />
building permit was issued in late July 2008 for<br />
construction of the highway bridge across the Moselle.<br />
But the dispute is still far from over. Two renowned authors<br />
of books on wine, Stuart Pigott and Hugh Johnson,<br />
recently joined the fray, claiming the bridge would endanger<br />
the Moselle wines. This was too much for Hajo<br />
Weinmann, spokesman of the Social Democratic faction<br />
in the Traben-Trarbach town council. “For years the town<br />
councilors of the communities along the Moselle have<br />
been discussing ways to improve the infrastructure and<br />
traffic flow,” he says. “Today, heavy-duty trucks still have<br />
to wind their way through the narrow streets of the region’s<br />
towns and villages. Our would-be rescuers should<br />
realize that. We don’t expect the bridge to have any negative<br />
effects on winegrowing.” The region’s premier, Kurt<br />
Beck, also rebuked the critics. “People act as though we<br />
want to roof over the entire Moselle River,” he quipped.<br />
No other Western nation is as hostile to new technology<br />
as Germany, claims the U.S. magazine Newsweek. “Germany<br />
needs a party that is for progress,” writes Michael<br />
Miersch in the magazine. The Social Democrats were<br />
such a progress-oriented party back in the early 1960s,<br />
when they campaigned with the slogan “A Blue Sky above<br />
The “not in my backyard” principle<br />
the Ruhr.” And the skies did become blue, thanks to progress<br />
resulting from innovation and technology. In his article,<br />
Miersch also claims that “many engineers, scientists,<br />
and technicians don’t feel at home in their own country,<br />
even though they are largely responsible for Germany’s<br />
prosperity.“ That’s why Czwielong and his team want to<br />
promote the <strong>Chemistry</strong> Park and safeguard jobs. Two<br />
years ago, experts mapped the locations of nesting birds<br />
and bats. “We’re creating alternative habitats for the bats,<br />
and we’ll let two buildings remain standing for use by<br />
the common house martin,” says Czwielong. The other<br />
houses of the community will be torn down. Czwielong<br />
is convinced he’ll be vindicated once the first potential<br />
investors examine the area. Together with Uta Heinrich<br />
and many others, he has played a key role in promoting<br />
a development that will benefit the Marl <strong>Chemistry</strong> Park<br />
as well as Germany as a business location.<br />
SUMMARY<br />
• Community action groups and nongovernmental organizations<br />
(NGOs) are increasingly hindering infrastructure and<br />
power plant projects in Germany. The opponents of such<br />
projects have also staged protests against coal-fired power<br />
plants in Datteln and, most recently, in Walsum. Even<br />
biogas facilities, wind turbines, and solar energy plants are<br />
being blocked nowadays. Another example is provided<br />
by the western expansion of the Marl <strong>Chemistry</strong> Park, which<br />
has now finally been approved after a ten-year dispute.<br />
The Schlenke community is now uninhabited. Mine workers used to live here<br />
EXPERIENCING 45
46 RECOGNIZING<br />
Catching Rays with <strong>Chemistry</strong><br />
Whether it’s solar cells or energy storage systems, thermal insulation or LED light sources,<br />
energy effi ciency technologies have one thing in common: They are based on discoveries in chemistry<br />
TEXT KLAUS JOPP
The right stuff for capturing solar<br />
energy: The chemical element silicon<br />
(Si), which can be found in every<br />
grain of sand, plays a dominant role in<br />
photovoltaics, whether as metallic<br />
raw silicon (above Einstein), as a<br />
polycrystalline material for installation<br />
in solar cells (to the left of Einstein)<br />
or as a fi nished solar cell (blue).<br />
Einstein is considered a pioneer in the<br />
production of electricity from the<br />
sun; he provided the theory behind<br />
the photovoltaic effect<br />
GRAPHIC BY PICFOUR, WITH THANKS TO: NASA, EVONIK INDUSTRIES,<br />
THOMAS KOEHLER/PHOTOTHEK.NET, DOCK.STOCK, AKG IMAGES; ILLUSTRATIONS: DIETER DUNEKA<br />
RECOGNIZING 47<br />
CHEMISTRY IS THE KEY to energy efficiency and<br />
thus to protecting the climate. Just last year, the International<br />
Council of Chemical Associations, ICCA, presented<br />
a study showing that the greenhouse gas emissions saved<br />
by chemical products are double the amount of such gases<br />
that are emitted during their production. In 2005, chemicals<br />
production generated a total of 3.3 billion metric tons<br />
of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. On the other side<br />
of the ledger, 8.5 billion metric tons were saved through<br />
chemical products. The energy efficiency of the industry’s<br />
processes is exemplary. From 1990 to 2007, the chemical<br />
industry in Europe reduced its greenhouse gas emissions<br />
by nearly 34 percent, although production was increased<br />
by more than 70 percent. The German chemical<br />
industry, the revenue leader in Europe, reduced its emissions<br />
by 37 percent by 2008, making it the international<br />
poster child in this area.<br />
However, the energy-intensive chemical industry cannot<br />
afford to rest on its laurels. It still accounts for nearly<br />
ten percent of the net electricity consumption in Germany.<br />
On the other hand, the know-how gleaned from the products<br />
is important for new, energy-saving solutions. Boosting<br />
energy efficiency ensures global competitiveness. It<br />
was against this backdrop that <strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong> AG established<br />
a center for energy efficiency, the Eco² Science-to-<br />
Business Center, in Marl in 2008. The industrial group is<br />
investing over €50 million in more than 20 research projects<br />
by 2013. Solar energy and energy storage, in particular,<br />
benefit from advancements in chemistry.<br />
On the following pages, you will see how the first<br />
groundbreaking discoveries in chemistry have led to the<br />
broad range of green technologies we have at our disposal<br />
today, ranging from the production of renewable energies<br />
to their storage.<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
48 RECOGNIZING<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: BELL LABS<br />
Browse our compact lexicon of the energy efficiency of<br />
Physicists have been working on<br />
solar electricity for a long time Silicon is the stuff of which solar cells are made<br />
Einstein’s energy<br />
[Photovoltaics] Basic knowledge<br />
about photovoltaics, the direct<br />
conversion of sunlight into electricity,<br />
goes a long way back. The<br />
French physicist Prof. Alexandre<br />
Edmond Becquerel discovered the<br />
relationship between light and<br />
electricity back in 1839—without<br />
being able to explain the phenomenon.<br />
Another researcher who<br />
made valuable contributions to<br />
this endeavor in the early 20th<br />
century was the German physicist<br />
Prof. Wilhelm Ludwig Franz Hallwachs,<br />
who laid the cornerstone<br />
for the development of the photocell,<br />
photoelectricity, and the<br />
light-quantum hypothesis. Shortly<br />
thereafter, in 1905, Prof. Albert<br />
Einstein established a key foundation<br />
for the advancement of photovoltaics<br />
when he formulated his<br />
light-quantum hypothesis and thus<br />
provided a theoretical explanation<br />
for the photovoltaic effect. For this<br />
achievement he was awarded the<br />
Nobel Prize for physics in 1921. In<br />
1954, Bell Laboratories in New<br />
Jersey (USA) produced the first<br />
solar cell based on the semiconducting<br />
material silicon.<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: EVONIK INDUSTRIES<br />
An incredibly clean affair<br />
[Solar silicon] Solar cells are made from<br />
various semiconducting materials that are produced<br />
in high-purity form by the chemical<br />
industry. More than 90 percent of the solar<br />
cells produced around the world are made<br />
of silicon (chemical symbol Si).<br />
In principle the silvery gray metalloid<br />
is nothing special—it’s as common as sand on<br />
the beach. Silicon is the second most abundant<br />
element in the Earth’s crust. Nonetheless,<br />
a few years ago there was a significant shortage<br />
of silicon, because the production of<br />
this material in high purity (99.999 percent) is<br />
very complex and requires the appropriate<br />
chemical processes.<br />
The German chemical industry is involved<br />
in the production of silicon in a variety of<br />
ways. Wacker Chemie AG, which is based in<br />
Munich, is the world’s second-largest<br />
producer of high-purity silicon for the solar industry.<br />
The company primarily uses ribbongrowing<br />
processes as well as the directional<br />
solidification of multicrystalline silicon.<br />
The polysilicon used for these processes must<br />
be extremely pure if high wafer pulling<br />
yields and perfect crystals are to be achieved.<br />
These in turn are required for the production<br />
of solar cells with high levels of efficiency.<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong> AG has developed an<br />
alternative production process. Hydrogen chloride<br />
is made to react with the raw silicon in or-<br />
der to transform the silicon into trichlorsilane,<br />
which in a further step is purified by means<br />
of distillation and subsequently converted into<br />
monosilane (SiH 4 ) and purified once again.<br />
The colorless gas is then thermally decomposed<br />
in a reactor, leaving behind silicon that has the<br />
required purity.<br />
The great advantage of this process is that it<br />
saves up to 90 percent of the energy that is<br />
required for the conventional production process.<br />
According to the German Solar Industry<br />
Association, Germany has a total production<br />
capacity of 27,500 metric tons of solar silicon<br />
per year.<br />
But plastics also play an important role<br />
when it comes to capturing the sun’s energy.<br />
First, the plastic material is used to cover solar<br />
bricks with solar cells, and also to focus the<br />
sunlight by means of Fresnel lenses, which can<br />
be manufactured from plastic using a variety<br />
of methods such as injection molding or extrusion.<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> has developed special PLEXI-<br />
GLAS- brand molding compounds for use in<br />
these applications.<br />
At the Group there is also a focus on<br />
specialty polymers that are used to create solar<br />
cells which are particularly lightweight and<br />
flexible. Electrically conductive plastics are<br />
used for these organic photovoltaics. Another<br />
approach to generating electricity from<br />
sunlight involves the use of synthetic dyes.
solar energy<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: SHARP, ILLUSTRATION: PICFOUR<br />
The subtle difference—but how great is its effect?<br />
[Thin and thick-layer cells] Conventional<br />
crystalline silicon solar cells are thick-layer cells<br />
that are manufactured from discs which are<br />
less than one millimeter thick, called wafers.<br />
The wafers are cut from either a single crystal<br />
(monocrystalline) or a block of crystals<br />
(polycrystalline). The cells consist of a p-layer<br />
that is approximately 0.6 millimeter thick<br />
and an n-layer that is only 0.001 millimeter<br />
thick. The two layers are doped with different<br />
impurity atoms (phosphorus and boron). It is<br />
this doping process that makes the conversion<br />
of sunlight into electricity possible. The<br />
efficiency of industrial-scale crystalline cells<br />
is between 16 and 20 percent.<br />
With material thicknesses of only a few<br />
micrometers (thousandths of a millimeter),<br />
thin-layer cells are significantly thinner than<br />
conventional solar cells. There are siliconbased<br />
solutions for thin-layer cells (amorphous<br />
and micromorph cells) as well, but there<br />
are also solutions based on a variety of other<br />
semiconducting materials.<br />
Organic solar cells and dye-sensitized solar<br />
cells (which are called Grätzel cells after their<br />
inventor) also belong in this category (see next<br />
page). Amorphous cells still hold the largest<br />
market share among the thin-layer cells today.<br />
They are significantly less expensive, but their<br />
efficiencies are only between five and seven<br />
percent.<br />
The micromorph thin-layer cell has a tandem<br />
structure consisting of an amorphous and a microcrystalline<br />
silicon layer. This configuration<br />
makes optimal use of the sun’s light spectrum<br />
because both of the silicon layers convert the<br />
entire spectrum of light, from violet to the<br />
near-infrared range, into electricity. This gives<br />
the tandem cell a potential efficiency of ten<br />
percent or more, which is roughly in the same<br />
range as the efficiencies of the alternative<br />
Through thick and thin<br />
Sharp Corporation, the<br />
world’s largest<br />
manufacturer of solar<br />
cells, brought the<br />
largest thin-layer cell<br />
factory on line this year<br />
in Sakai, outside of<br />
Osaka (Japan). Sharp<br />
plans a production<br />
volume of 1,000<br />
megawatts per year<br />
semiconducting materials. Efficiency values<br />
as high as 20 percent have been achieved in the<br />
laboratory.<br />
Some of these semiconductors are at a<br />
disadvantage in the long run because they are<br />
rare and in very high demand, besides being<br />
difficult to recycle. This is why the hopes for<br />
lightweight, flexible, and mobile solutions tend<br />
to rest on organic solar cells that are based on<br />
plastics and dyes.<br />
Thin-layer cells are increasingly being used concurrently with the familiar thick-layer cells.<br />
In contrast to the conventional wafer solar cell, the light falls onto the surface structure<br />
of a thin-layer cell at an angle and strikes an optically reflective reverse side, which multiplies<br />
the light path of the cell several times. A 30-micrometer thin-layer cell provides nearly<br />
the same photovoltaic effect as a 300-micrometer thick wafer cell.<br />
The graphic shows a thin-layer cell on the left compared with<br />
a thick-layer cell on the right<br />
RECOGNIZING 49<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
50 RECOGNIZING<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: ACTION PRESS<br />
The pioneer Michael Grätzel captures the energy of the<br />
Prof. Michael Grätzel, winner of the<br />
“2010 Millennium Technology Prize”<br />
The Grätzel cell<br />
[Dye layer] Prof. Michael Grätzel,<br />
a physicist at the Swiss Federal Institute<br />
of Technology in Lausanne<br />
(Switzerland), has developed a<br />
new concept that was inspired by<br />
the photosynthesis of green plants<br />
back in the early 1990s. Instead of<br />
using the chlorophyll of plants, the<br />
Grätzel cell captures solar energy<br />
by means of a layer of synthetic<br />
dye. What makes this cell so interesting<br />
is that it becomes more efficient<br />
as the light becomes weaker<br />
and more diffuse; that’s a particular<br />
advantage for regions that do<br />
not receive very much sunshine.<br />
The quality of the nanocrystalline<br />
layers in which the dye is absorbed<br />
is a prerequisite for high efficiency.<br />
These layers enlarge the active surface<br />
that is available for the photoelectric<br />
process by a factor of<br />
1,000. A number of research institutions<br />
are now conducting research<br />
into alternatives to the synthetic<br />
dye in order to make the cells<br />
even more efficient. Grätzel<br />
himself, the winner of this year’s<br />
Millennium Technology Prize,<br />
believes that efficiencies in excess<br />
of 30 percent are possible.<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: FRAUNHOFER ISE, GRAPHIC: PICFOUR<br />
Research is focusing on the organic solar cell<br />
Turning plastic into electricity<br />
[Organic solar cells] Organic solar cells are<br />
made of materials from organic chemistry,<br />
in particular plastics. New developments have<br />
now given rise to electrically conductive and<br />
superconducting polymers. In the lab, light is<br />
converted to electricity with an efficiency<br />
of approximately 12 percent. The particular advantages<br />
of organic solar cells lie in other areas,<br />
however, including a tremendous potential to<br />
The layer principle<br />
Incident light<br />
Substrate: Glass, fi lm<br />
Back electrode (transparent)<br />
Transport layer<br />
Absorber: Polymer-fullerene<br />
Metal contact<br />
Organic solar cells<br />
are effective only<br />
if the electrons<br />
can move with<br />
ease from the<br />
polymer to the<br />
fullerenes and<br />
traverse the<br />
distance to the<br />
electrode quickly<br />
Electrical<br />
conductor<br />
Fullerene accepter<br />
sun with a layer of dye<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: YOUNICOS, ILLUSTRATION: EVONIK INDUSTRIES<br />
The world’s largest and fi rst solar charging station is in Berlin<br />
Solar storage on a grand scale<br />
[Storage technology] Closely associated with<br />
the increased use of photovoltaics—and renewable<br />
energies in general—is the development<br />
of the storage technology. Particularly<br />
at night and under very cloudy skies, the yields<br />
from photovoltaic systems are in effect zero,<br />
and high-performance storage systems must<br />
be available to bridge these downtimes.<br />
<strong>Chemistry</strong> is also laying the groundwork here.<br />
Leading the efforts in Germany toward<br />
the development and production of large,<br />
rechargeable lithium-ion batteries is Li-Tec<br />
Battery GmbH, a joint venture between<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong> AG and Daimler AG that is<br />
based in Kamenz, Germany. Smaller versions<br />
of such systems are already used in cameras,<br />
cellular phones, and laptop computers.<br />
However, their energy density must increase<br />
to 150 watt-hours per kilogram before<br />
they can be suitable for use in electric vehicles<br />
and industrial applications.<br />
Nor is existing battery technology reliable<br />
or safe enough for the power required of<br />
large-volume systems. Components from<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong>, in particular an innovative ceramic<br />
membrane, compensate for this disadvantage.<br />
The heat-resistant separator serves as a partition<br />
between the electrochemical reactions,<br />
and because it does not melt until it reaches<br />
600 °C (Celsius), the risk of a short-circuit is<br />
almost completely eliminated.<br />
The global race for the car battery of the future<br />
is in full swing. In the long run, this will also<br />
benefit stationary systems that could be used in<br />
many locations as storage stations for wind and<br />
solar power. With the support of the German<br />
Federal Ministry of Research, <strong>Evonik</strong> and<br />
Li-Tec have already packed 4,700 cells into a<br />
demonstrator called LESSY (lithium-ion<br />
electricity storage system), which is scheduled<br />
to begin testing in 2011. LESSY’s storage<br />
system has a power of one megawatt.<br />
Large lithium-ion batteries will<br />
store solar and wind power and make<br />
it available to the electrical grid.<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> is developing a giant<br />
rechargeable battery called LESSY<br />
(lithium-ion electricity storage<br />
system), which will be roughly the<br />
size of a shipping container.<br />
A LESSY is fi tted with 4,700 cells<br />
and has a capacity<br />
of 700 kilowatt-hours<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: PEUGEOT DEUTSCHLAND<br />
RECOGNIZING 51<br />
The four electric motors of the<br />
Peugeot Pure are in the tires<br />
Air instead of lead<br />
[Lithium systems] Already under<br />
development today are innovative<br />
lithium systems in which the oxygen<br />
in the air is supposed to serve<br />
as a reaction partner for the lithium.<br />
Designs of this type are expected to<br />
achieve an energy density of at<br />
least 200 watt-hours per kilogram,<br />
and their weight would be just<br />
one fifth that of conventional lead<br />
batteries.<br />
The ultimate outcome of this<br />
development could be the super<br />
battery, a particularly clever<br />
lithium technology that uses the air<br />
as a cathode. Researchers are<br />
dreaming of such systems, which<br />
could boast an energy density of<br />
1,500 watt-hours per kilogram in<br />
approximately ten years.<br />
With a system of this kind, an<br />
electrically powered vehicle would<br />
require a battery pack weighing as<br />
little as 120 kilograms in order to<br />
enjoy a mobility range of 1,000 kilometers.<br />
A major contributor<br />
along the road to this goal has been<br />
the new MEET (Münster Electrochemical<br />
Energy Technology)<br />
battery research center at the<br />
University of Münster.<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
52 ACHIEVING<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: AKG IMAGES, PICTURE ALLIANCE/DPA, MARKUS PIETREK, ROGER VIOLLET/GETTY IMAGES<br />
The Women after Curie<br />
A hundred years ago, it caused a sensation when a woman, Prof. Marie<br />
Curie, received the Nobel Prize for chemistry. Today many women<br />
are studying chemistry, but only a few go on to occupy top positions<br />
TEXT DR. BRIGITTE RÖTHLEIN<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010<br />
Marie Curie received<br />
her fi rst Nobel Prize<br />
for physics in 1903<br />
together with her<br />
husband (left). In 1911<br />
she was the fi rst woman<br />
to receive the Nobel<br />
Prize for chemistry<br />
(right)<br />
THE RUSSIAN RAILWAY COMPANY was faced<br />
with a problem: Its workers regularly got frostbite on<br />
their faces when they were sent to build railroad lines<br />
in Siberia. Hands and bodies can be protected from the<br />
freezing cold with warm clothes and gloves, but not<br />
the entire face. That’s why the railroad officials turned<br />
to the Skin Care product line in the Care Specialties<br />
Business Line of <strong>Evonik</strong> <strong>Industries</strong> AG in Krefeld to<br />
ask whether its specialist for “working skin” also had a<br />
cream that protects against the cold. The requirements<br />
were that the cream should be easy to squeeze from the<br />
tube at below-zero temperatures, be easy to spread,<br />
and leave no greasy marks on workpieces, as siliconebased<br />
creams do.<br />
Dr. Petra Allef, Head of Research, Development,<br />
and Application Technology at Skin Care, took on the<br />
challenge and developed, together with her team, the<br />
silicone-free cream STOKO frost protect, which stands<br />
up to the Siberian cold thanks to a special anti-freezing<br />
property. Today the cream is used outside Russia as<br />
well, protecting workers in German refrigerated warehouses<br />
and researchers on the Arctic Ocean, for example.<br />
The product recently received the Innovation Prize<br />
of the British Occupational Hygiene Society.<br />
Petra Allef and her research department have many<br />
different kinds of problems to solve. For example, workers<br />
in the metal processing industry have to protect<br />
their hands from aggressive cooling lubricants, welders<br />
and road construction crews need face creams that<br />
offer very good protection from ultraviolet light (UV-<br />
A, B, and C), and people in the cleaning and care professions<br />
depend on especially effective hand creams.<br />
The 15 researchers in the team keep finding unusual<br />
solutions, for example a new type of skin cleanser for<br />
use against heavy soiling from materials such as grease<br />
and oils—completely without abrasives.<br />
“Even as a child, I always wanted to be a chemist,”<br />
says Dr. Allef, who is now 39. When she decided at age<br />
12 that this was the only profession for her, people only<br />
smiled. And when she expressed this wish as a 10thgrader<br />
at a job counseling session at the local labor exchange,<br />
she was advised to become a teacher instead,<br />
as “that’s something more suitable for women.” Dr.<br />
Bettina Lotsch, a 32-year-old professor of chemistry<br />
at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, didn’t have<br />
these kinds of problems early on, but she did find that at<br />
the university level there’s a serious break. “The number<br />
of men and women receiving doctorates is roughly<br />
equal, but there’s a dramatic difference when you get<br />
to the postdoctoral stage,” she says.<br />
Petra Allef didn’t get discouraged and pursued her<br />
ambition, even though the road was sometimes rocky.<br />
“I got my doctorate in natural product chemistry/stereoselective<br />
synthesis, because I would have liked to work<br />
in the field of pharmacology,” she says. “However, in<br />
spite of many job interviews, I didn’t get that kind of position.<br />
The jobs always went to men with professional<br />
experience.” She finally accepted an offer from Procter<br />
& Gamble and worked on optimizing aftershave and<br />
toothpaste for the Gillette brand. “I enjoyed that a lot,<br />
because in this field you get results quickly and then<br />
you can hold in your hand a product you’ve developed<br />
yourself,” she says.<br />
Strictly for men?<br />
Allef’s switch to <strong>Evonik</strong> was the result of a coincidence.<br />
She was sitting in an airplane reading a magazine<br />
when she noticed a job ad from <strong>Evonik</strong> Gold-
Dr. Petra Allef, 39, Head of<br />
Research, Development,<br />
and Application Technology at<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong>’s Skin Care product<br />
line in Krefeld, learned early on<br />
to go her own way and<br />
not let others divert her
54 ACHIEVING<br />
schmidt GmbH. Without hesitating, she sent in a<br />
job application and immediately received a position<br />
as head of the synthesis group for cosmetic base materials.<br />
Five years ago she was promoted to the position<br />
of Head of Innovation Management at Skin Care. “After<br />
I became a manager, I never again had problems asserting<br />
myself professionally as a woman against the<br />
men,” she says.<br />
Less than a hundred years ago, such a situation<br />
would have been unthinkable. In 1911, when the famous<br />
chemist Marie Curie dared to apply for membership<br />
in the French Academy of Sciences, she caused a<br />
quite a stir. She had already been doing research with<br />
extraordinary success, and in 1903 she had received<br />
her first Nobel Prize for physics, together with her<br />
husband. When her candidature for the Academy was<br />
announced in the newspaper Le Figaro on November<br />
16, 1910, the Paris newspapers discussed whether a<br />
woman was even entitled to a membership. There was<br />
a range of opinions, from disapproving conservatives to<br />
supporters of women’s rights who would have loved to<br />
see a woman in the Academy’s sacred halls. Paparazzi<br />
even tried to chase her down in order to get photos of<br />
the elegant 43-year-old woman scientist.<br />
Women not admitted!<br />
On Monday, January 24, 1911, the Academy of Sciences<br />
took a vote. A large crowd of spectators had arrived,<br />
but only the men were admitted. A total of 58<br />
members were present, so the absolute majority was 30<br />
votes. The new member who was eventually accepted,<br />
with just a few votes more than Curie, was the physicist<br />
Prof. Édouard Branly, who subsequently faded into<br />
obscurity. Although Curie did not show her disappoint-<br />
The chemist Silvia Marten,<br />
39, a department head<br />
at the Knauer company in<br />
Berlin, is benefi ting<br />
from a child-friendly boss
Dr. Andrea Schütze,<br />
44, a team leader<br />
at Shell Hamburg who<br />
is responsible for<br />
lubricants research,<br />
has learned not to<br />
conceal her<br />
accomplishments<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: NORA BIBEL, POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES, ULRIKE SCHACHT, ULLSTEIN BILD/ROGER VIOLLET<br />
Men communicate differently<br />
ment in public, she never made another attempt to become<br />
a member of the Academy of Sciences. It took 68<br />
years for the elitist club to accept its first female member,<br />
the mathematician Prof. Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat.<br />
The Nobel Prize committee was more courageous: In<br />
1911 Marie Curie received her second Nobel Prize,<br />
this time for chemistry. In the following years women<br />
did not make great progress in chemistry: In 1935 Curie’s<br />
daughter Irène received the Nobel Prize together<br />
with her husband, followed only in 1964 by the British<br />
chemist Prof. Dorothy Hodgkin. It remains to be seen<br />
whether a new trend has been signaled by the awarding<br />
of the Nobel Prize last year to the Israeli Prof. Ada Yonath.<br />
Although it’s true that in the 20th century there<br />
was a change of attitude toward women, one looks in<br />
vain for outstanding female role models in the field of<br />
chemistry during this period. Important women researchers<br />
have remained in the background, such as<br />
the British chemist Prof. Rosalind Franklin, who laid the<br />
groundwork in 1953 for the discovery of the structure<br />
of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), but never received<br />
the Nobel Prize.<br />
Women who were interested in chemistry tended<br />
to choose medical professions, where they had much<br />
better career opportunities. Today, however, there are<br />
many women chemists in scientific professions. According<br />
to a statistic of the National Pact for Women in<br />
MINT Careers (MINT: mathematics, information science,<br />
natural sciences, technology), approximately 47<br />
percent of the freshmen majoring in chemistry in Germany<br />
are women. However, a gap opens up once they<br />
graduate. “There’s a clear discrepancy between the<br />
numbers of women studying chemistry and the numbers<br />
entering it as a career and becoming professional<br />
ACHIEVING 55<br />
scientists,” says Dr. Ines Weller, a professor at the University<br />
of Bremen who works at the Research Center<br />
for Sustainability Studies/Center for Gender Studies.<br />
“We’re not managing to keep this high proportion of<br />
women. Instead, it drops significantly during the subsequent<br />
phase of advanced studies.”<br />
The chemistry professor Bettina Lotsch believes<br />
there are several reasons for that. The most important<br />
one is that many women believe they have to decide<br />
between having a family and having a career. In order<br />
to show women possible solutions, universities have<br />
to start as soon as possible, according to Lotsch, a 32-<br />
year-old researcher who doesn’t believe that quotas<br />
for women are a good solution. “As early as graduate<br />
school, we should be showing women different possibilities<br />
for combining a family and a career. And then, of<br />
course, we have to create the corresponding infrastructure,<br />
for example having daycare centers on campus.”<br />
Self-presentation is crucial<br />
Silvia Marten has successfully combined a career and<br />
a family. She heads a department at the Knauer company<br />
in Berlin, which specializes in manufacturing scientific<br />
equipment, and has a nine-year-old daughter.<br />
Her husband travels a lot for his job. “Fortunately, my<br />
daughter’s grandparents help out a lot, but daily life<br />
still requires lots of organization,” says the 39-yearold<br />
chemist. Marten’s job requires her full concentration<br />
and lots of travel, as she is in charge of so-called<br />
“column phase application.” This is a process in highperformance<br />
liquid chromatography (HPLC) in which<br />
mixtures of substances can be separated with extreme<br />
precision and analyzed. Marten and her six specialists<br />
are direct contact persons for the customers.<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010
56 ACHIEVING<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY: THOMAS DASHUBER, ULLSTEIN BILD/AISA<br />
Becoming a manager is no piece of cake<br />
The child-friendly policies of Silvia Marten’s employer<br />
have helped her to combine her career and her<br />
family. Alexandra Knauer, the owner and CEO of this<br />
medium-sized company, helps her 104 employees out<br />
wherever she can. She has set up a children’s room<br />
where employees voluntarily take care of the children<br />
at the company’s expense. “Taking care of each other’s<br />
children reinforces communication between the<br />
employees and improves the working atmosphere as a<br />
whole,” says Knauer, who is herself the mother of two<br />
children. “We simply can’t afford to let the professional<br />
potential of women lie fallow,” she says. She believes<br />
it’s even more important to strengthen the way women<br />
present themselves. “We have to realize that we’re just<br />
as good as the men, and we have to clearly communicate<br />
our achievements,” she emphasizes. That’s why<br />
she also offers training courses for women employees,<br />
where they can learn how to present themselves and<br />
how to deal effectively with their male colleagues.<br />
Good work alone is not enough<br />
Dr. Andrea Schütze has also had to learn these professional<br />
skills. Schütze, a 44-year-old chemist, was<br />
previously responsible for developing fuels at Shell<br />
in Hamburg; since January 2010 she has been a team<br />
leader in the area of lubricant research. Together with<br />
her 12 team members she develops lubricants for the<br />
bearings of various transmission systems, ranging<br />
from window lifters in cars to airplane landing gear<br />
and wind turbines. All of these applications have very<br />
different requirements, so her group always looks for<br />
the optimal lubricant for every purpose. In her work<br />
she deals not only with chemistry but also with process<br />
engineering.<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE September 2010<br />
This is really male territory, but Andrea Schütze was<br />
undaunted. “I’ve always been interested in chemistry,<br />
especially its practical applications. Besides, I like<br />
cars,” she says. Her parents also worked in technical<br />
professions, so she had no fears regarding technology.<br />
What was new to her was the way women have to present<br />
themselves in a man’s world. “Men always show<br />
off their achievements, but women still have to learn<br />
how to do that. Good work alone is not enough,” she<br />
says. “It’s wrong to simply expect the boss to seek you<br />
out when there’s a higher position to fill. You have to<br />
make sure you’re not overlooked.” Bettina Lotsch has<br />
also observed a difference between men’s and women’s<br />
behavior on the job. “One theory about why there<br />
are so few women professors in the universities is that<br />
the structures there are very masculine. They are characterized<br />
by networks, and men communicate differently.<br />
It’s not always easy for women to find their way<br />
in this male-oriented world,” she says.<br />
Nonetheless, she deals with this difficulty in a relaxed<br />
way: “At meetings I don’t feel I always have to<br />
dominate the discussion. I tend to stay in the background.<br />
I don’t need power.” What motivates her is<br />
science. Even as a student she was one of the best, and<br />
she received scholarship aid from the Chemical Industry<br />
Fund. In her master’s thesis she combined aspects of<br />
physical, organic, and inorganic chemistry, which are<br />
traditionally strictly separate. She still follows this approach<br />
today. After receiving her doctorate she went to<br />
Toronto, Canada, where she worked in the field of material<br />
chemistry. She had previously concentrated more<br />
on fundamental research, but now she changed her focus<br />
to applied research. For example, she investigated<br />
porous materials on the nanoscale, which have impor-<br />
<strong>Chemistry</strong> professor<br />
Dr. Bettina Lotsch, 32,<br />
doesn’t believe in<br />
quotas for women. The<br />
University of Munich<br />
persuaded the nanoexpert<br />
to return to<br />
Germany from<br />
Toronto (Canada)
ACHIEVING 57<br />
tant applications in the areas of gas storage, catalysis,<br />
and sensor technology on account of their extensive<br />
surface area. It is hoped that their customized production<br />
will open up possibilities for a new “soft” chemistry.<br />
This field, known as “functional nanostructures,”<br />
is a hot topic at the moment, so the University of Munich<br />
was not about to let this extraordinary young researcher<br />
go. It lured her back by offering her a professorship,<br />
which she accepted in February 2009. Now<br />
Lotsch has to show whether she is equal to the demands<br />
of this leadership position. “I have to build up my team,<br />
settle in, and start by getting used to being a professor,”<br />
she says. “And of course I have exactly the same teaching<br />
obligations as my colleagues.”<br />
She certainly can’t expect any special treatment. Sylvia<br />
Martin sums up the situation as follows: “Women<br />
definitely have to be better than the men; you have to<br />
work hard to be accepted in this profession. It’s no piece<br />
of cake.” It is therefore all the more important for women<br />
to enjoy their work, feel comfortable in their jobs, and<br />
not let themselves be put under pressure. After all, unlike<br />
the days of Marie Curie, all doors are now open to<br />
women chemists—they merely have to step inside.<br />
SUMMARY<br />
• Approximately 47 percent of the freshmen majoring in<br />
chemistry are women, but there are still very few women in<br />
managerial positions in the chemical industry.<br />
• The main reasons for that include the difficulty of<br />
combining a family and a career—as well as the<br />
way women present themselves, because they often don’t<br />
feel they can handle managerial responsibilities.<br />
• The solution involves building better infrastructures and<br />
promoting stronger self-confidence among women.
58 LIVING<br />
Microzoos for Saving the World<br />
TOM SCHIMMECK reports on biochemistry<br />
that aims to solve global problems<br />
ILLUSTRATION PETER PICHLER<br />
“WE’RE TRYING to find the ultimate solution<br />
for replacing oil,” says Prof. James C. Liao,<br />
Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering<br />
at the University of California in Los Angeles<br />
(UCLA). “That’s because the age of petroleum<br />
is coming to an end.”<br />
Prof. Liao’s words aren’t just an empty boast.<br />
He and his team have backed them up with pioneering<br />
research that is moving toward “green”<br />
biochemistry, which could solve global problems.<br />
Their approach involves genetic alteration<br />
of microorganisms. The trick here is to manipulate<br />
bacteria so that they become able to turn a<br />
source of anxiety into a cornucopia of benefits.<br />
One example is carbon dioxide. Since the start<br />
of the Industrial Revolution, human beings have<br />
produced many gigatons of it, in addition to the<br />
amounts generated by natural processes. Carbon<br />
dioxide isn’t a pollutant; on the contrary, it’s<br />
essential for life on Earth. The problem is its increasing<br />
amounts. The CO 2 from factory smokestacks,<br />
power plants, and vehicles is worsening<br />
the notorious greenhouse effect that is changing<br />
the climate. What can we do with the gas?<br />
In the Petri dishes in their labs, Prof. Liao and<br />
his team are growing a genetically altered variant<br />
of the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus,<br />
a photosynthetic freshwater bacterium that<br />
can turn the problematic CO 2 into clean fuel. Liao’s<br />
team is also working with the well-known<br />
intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli, whose metabolism<br />
the researchers have altered in such a<br />
way that this coli bacterium has mutated into a<br />
fuel factory. “We’ve been lucky to find a new<br />
<strong>Evonik</strong> Magazine CHEMICAL INDUSTRY SPECIAL ISSUE 2010<br />
method for very efficiently transforming carbon<br />
dioxide into fuel,” reports Liao modestly.<br />
There are microorganisms in nature that can<br />
ferment plants with high sugar or starch content<br />
into alcohol. However, natural microorganisms<br />
produce only materials with a low energy content.<br />
So far, all attempts to increase this energy<br />
content have proved to be far too inefficient. But<br />
the bacteria from Prof. Liao’s microzoo are able<br />
to perform mighty feats: They can transform<br />
CO 2 into higher alcohols consisting of longer<br />
molecular chains, including biofuels such as isobutanol,<br />
which yield much more energy than the<br />
well-known ethanol. And they do it by means of<br />
photosynthesis, which is fueled by solar energy.<br />
So emissions once again become fuel.<br />
This may sound a bit like turning water into<br />
wine. But it’s actually even better, because if<br />
such a process becomes available on an industrial<br />
scale, a problem would immediately be solved<br />
and a new, clean fuel would simultaneously be<br />
produced. “We’ve shown that this possibility<br />
is feasible,” says Liao. However, he adds that it<br />
will take a great deal of further effort before the<br />
method can be used by industry. He predicts this<br />
will happen “in five to ten years.”<br />
James Liao, who grew up in Taiwan, started<br />
out as a chemical engineer. He has been a professor<br />
at UCLA since 1997 and has received so<br />
many awards for his pioneering work that he<br />
could easily decorate an entire wall with them. In<br />
June 2010, Liao received the Presidential Green<br />
<strong>Chemistry</strong> Challenge Academic Award of the<br />
Environmental Protection Agency in Washing-<br />
ton (District of Columbia, USA). This coveted<br />
prize is awarded for the development of alternative<br />
technologies that reduce toxic waste or even<br />
help to eliminate it altogether. President Barack<br />
Obama sent his congratulations.<br />
According to Liao, a chemical engineer “is<br />
always looking for ways to manipulate chemical<br />
reactions within a system.” Liao is using this<br />
approach today in order to find out how we can<br />
change the chemical reactions taking place inside<br />
a cell. It wasn’t until the beginning of the<br />
21st century that scientists began research focusing<br />
on altering cell metabolism.<br />
A metabolic engineer? Could the profession<br />
be an icon of the postindustrial age? The<br />
new research areas are in fact called “metabolic<br />
engineering” and “synthetic biology.” Initially,<br />
says Liao, “we couldn’t imagine our work would<br />
develop such a tremendous impact.” But today<br />
the pressure of global problems is the scientists’<br />
strongest motivation. “I always encourage my<br />
students to aim high,” Liao says. But there’s no<br />
cause for megalomania, he adds: “It takes many<br />
small steps to achieve a major change.”<br />
Microorganisms taking over chemical production.<br />
According to Liao, an initial “bacteria<br />
factory” could be built right next to a power<br />
plant—enabling it to directly transform the<br />
plant’s CO 2 emissions into biofuel. This could<br />
potentially even be cost-efficient. Does he consider<br />
himself a genius? “Nature has created all<br />
of this,” says Liao evasively. “We’re only channeling<br />
the natural biochemistry of the cell into a<br />
useful process.”
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