Evonik Magazine
Evonik Magazine
2|2010
S E IZI N G O PP O RT U N I T I E S E A R L I E R
2 | 2010
The Age of Aquaculture
How do we feed fish so that they can feed the world?
1_Evonik_03-10_EN 1
08.11.2010 16:25:51 Uhr
www.evonik.com
Exceptional solutions in plastics
are no exception for us.
Evonik.indd 1
03.09.2010 16:36:19 Uhr
EDITORIAL 3
A New Challenge
PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTIAN SCHLÜTER/EVONIK INDUSTRIES
How are new ideas generated? If people understand a solution,
they will accept it—both inside and outside companies.
Dr. Klaus Engel, Chairman of the Executive Board
of Evonik Industries AG
Dear readers,
Evonik Magazine offers us the opportunity
to present the products and developments of
our company in more detail and in the proper
context. For example, we provide background
stories on their origins and answer questions
about how new ideas are generated and
how innovations are industrially engineered.
When we talk about new products and
solutions, we always have to deal with the
important aspect of their effects on society
and on the individual’s quality of life.
Communicating these aspects is becoming increasingly important today in view of the
growing complexity of production processes
and of interlinked effects. In Germany in
particular, we are currently experiencing
reservations on the part of the general public, which seem to originate in faulty communication between industry and organized
interest groups. Thomas Schmid, Editor in Chief
of the newspaper Die Welt, summed up this
lash among those who, rightly or wrongly, believe it represents a threat to... their accustomed
way of life.”
One can regret that this basic attitude exists,
but it’s also possible to view it as a challenge
to explain the important role of industry in
social development, growing global prosperity,
and improved living conditions. Take food,
for example: How can we feed people’s growing
appetite for meat and fish in a way that is environmentally responsible? If people understand
a solution, they will accept it—both inside and
outside companies.
Numerous examples illustrate the fact that
many hotly debated topics, when viewed from
this standpoint, turn out to be only apparent
controversies. Is there a basic contradiction
between the “old economy” and the modern
knowledge society? Not really. After all, a
large proportion of our knowledge and our basic
living conditions depend on the achievements
of industrial research. Vital service structures
grow best in places where there are healthy
industrial foundations.
In the global economy, which is once again
on an upswing, it’s clear that the especially
successful companies are those that do not think
in terms of apparent contradictions but
instead synthesize the talents and experiences
at hand and make the best use of them.
Sincerely,
attitude as follows: “Progress generates a back-
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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4 CONTENTS
With
on
fo
a ldout
ry
to
is
h
e
th
of light
LEDS are the future of light. The changing colors of 40,000 LEDs on the facade of the Ars Electronica Center in Linz (Austria) make it a striking attraction
Intelligent fish feed
MASTHEAD
PAGE 36
Publisher:
Evonik Industries AG
Christian Kullmann
Rellinghauser Str. 1–11
45128 Essen
Renewables: When will they replace oil?
Office Manager/ Head of
Corporate Internal Communications and Group Media:
Stefan Haver
Editor in Chief:
Urs Schnabel (responsible for
editorial content)
Art Direction:
Wolf Dammann
Final Editing:
Michael Hopp (Head),
Birgitt Cordes
Managing Editor:
Stefan Glowa
Picture Desk:
Ulrich Thiessen
Documentation:
Kerstin Weber-Rajab,
Tilman Baucken; Hamburg
PAGE 42
PAGE 12
Prof. Andreas Gursky knows it pays to
Design:
Teresa Nunes (Head),
Anja Giese, Heike Hentschel/
Redaktion 4
Copy Desk:
Wilm Steinhäuser
Translation:
TransForm, Cologne
Publisher and address:
HOFFMANN UND CAMPE
VERLAG GmbH,
a GANSKE VERLAGSGRUPPE
company
Harvestehuder Weg 42
20149 Hamburg
Telephone +49 40 44188-457
Fax +49 40 44188-236
e-mail cp@hoca.de
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 12:51:20 Uhr
CONTENTS 5
EDITORIAL
Evonik Global
3 A New Challenge
A journey around the world to international Evonik locations
USA
”If people understand a solution, they will accept it.”
Japan
China
In Portland (Oregon),
Evonik is becoming
a key producer in the
fast growing semiconductor industry and
thus consolidating its
position in chip
manufacturing
Evonik is supplying
the market directly
with medical active
ingredients from
two new plants in
Shanghai and Nanning
Next year, Evonik will
supply the booming
electronics industry
from a new integrated
production facility
for monosilane. It’s
another piece in the
Asia strategy jigsaw
INFORMING
Three minutes with: Prof. Richard F. Heck created the foundation of
modern chemistry
World map: Happiness and millionaires—the satisfaction index
Guest column: Ralf Südhoff, spokesman for the UN World Food
Programme, on the scandal of the global food crisis
Debating: Are we playing off “green” against hunger?
Committed to responsibility PAGE 26
SHAPING
12 Seeing the Light
Once there were lamps. Now, LEDs enable objects to illuminate themselves. Hundreds of thousands of years after the discovery of fire, this
new technology is lighting up our lives with undreamed-of possibilities
Saudi Arabia
Together with local
partners, Evonik is
planning a joint
venture to produce
superabsorbers
in the world’s largest
industrial park
India
Singapore
To serve the growing
automotive market,
Evonik and its
subsidiary INSILCO
are producing silicic
acid for the tire
industry
Evonik finds itself
in the best of company
on the artificial island
of Jurong. Almost 100
chemical companies
have set up operations
there
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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GLOBAL
53 A Journey
Around the World
to International
Locations
India: Safer auto tires with
silicic acid
China: New plants in Shanghai
and Nanning
INSPIRING
26 Expeditions Beyond the Familiar
“Common Purpose” is an international network of people who want to
make a difference. Author Martin Kuhna paid them a visit
USA: Evonik strengthens its
position in the chip industry
Japan: New monosilane facility for the electronics industry
DISCOVERING
32 Awakening Kids’ Interest in Science
The German economy will soon face a dramatic shortage of specialized
professionals. The only answer: spark the kids’ interest at school
APPLYING
An early interest in technology PAGE 32
PHOTOGRAPHY: ANTHONY BRADSHAW/GETTY IMAGES, PICTURE-ALLIANCE/DPA
6 At First Glance
Saudi Arabia: New market
with superabsorbers
Singapore: Jurong Island
has it all
36 The Age of Aquaculture
India: What’s turning this
country into a boom region?
How do we feed them so they can feed the world? Fish breeding in fish
farms is gaining in importance
FINDING
RECOGNIZING
59 At a Glance
42 Weaning Chemicals off Oil
An index of the products
mentioned in this publication
Not only our lifestyle depends on petroleum; it’s also a must for chemicals. How can the industry free itself from this dependence?
EXPERIENCING
46 Andreas Gursky
Prof. Andreas Gursky moved to the Ruhr region as a child and has lived
there ever since. A portrait of a photographer who is a global superstar
LIVING
52 Light and Shadow
keep moving
Management:
Dr. Kai Laakmann,
Dr. Andreas Siefke,
Bernd Ziesemer
Publication Manager:
Dr. Ingo Kohlschein
Production:
Claude Hellweg (Head),
Oliver Lupp
PAGE 46
Lithography: PX2, Hamburg
Printing: Neef+Stumme
premium printing, Wittingen
Copyright: © 2010 by
Evonik Industries AG, Essen.
Reprinting only with the permission of the publisher. The
contents do not necessarily
reflect the opinion of the publisher.
An experiment by physicists at Humboldt University in Berlin shows
Goethe was right with his Theory of Colors
Contact:
Questions and suggestions on
the contents of the magazine:
Telephone
+49 201 177-3340,
Fax
+49 201 177-3013,
e-mail
magazin@evonik.com
Questions about orders or
subscriptions:
Telephone
+49 40 68879-139
Fax
+49 40 68879-199
e-mail
magazin-vertrieb@hoca.de
AEROSIL®, AEROXIDE®, Biolys®,
Dynasylan®, FAVOR®,
PLEXIGLAS®, PLEXIGLAS truLED®,
PLEXIMID®, Savosil™, SiVARA™,
ULTRASIL®, VESTAMID®,
and VISCOPLEX® are registered
trademarks of Evonik Industries AG
or one of its subsidiaries.
They are indicated in capital letters
throughout the text.
You can also find
this issue of
Evonik Magazine online
at www.evonik.com
PHOTOGRAPHY: F1ONLINE,
CATRIN MORITZ, CORBIS,
SIEGFRIED SCHWESIG/RAG,
LOESEL/VISUM, KUNZ/
BILDERBERG. COVER PHOTO:
STOCKFOOD
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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6 INFORMING
Three minutes with…
Quote of the month
Richard F. Heck
A Satisfied Man
“Follow
Your
Heart”
Pd
Styrene
Br Bromobenzene
H
Pd
c
H
c
H
c
H
Pd
H
Br
H
c
H
Br
H
H
c
H
c
H
H
H
c
c
H
H
Br
H
Richard F. Heck received the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry for
the cross-coupling of carbon
atoms
Pd
Jianliang Tuo, Department Head
at Evonik Degussa (China) Co.,
Ltd. on his career path from
his studies of German literature
to the Chinese Ministry of
Foreign Trade and on to Evonik
in Shanghai.
Evonik in figures
600
trainees joined
Evonik Industries AG
on September 1, 2010.
210
Plexiglas elements
adorn Technische Universität
München’s weather tower.
2.1 billion
kilowatthours of thermal energy are
provided each year by Evonik in
North Rhine-Westphalia.
430,000
metric tons
of the amino acid methionine
will be produced per year by
Evonik until 2013.
Palladium (Pd), bromine (Br), carbon (C), hydrogen (H)
Treading Softly
Get into your running shoes and out into nature—jogging is among the
most popular outdoor sports. A new class of running shoe—the
adidas Porsche Design Bounce™: S L—is the latest top model on the
market. And the newcomer can take a real pounding. A midsole
of the high-performance plastic VESTAMID LX 9012 from Evonik
Industries AG provides damping, absorbs hard impacts, stabilizes
the runner’s feet, and makes running easier due to its low weight.
Together with processors and sporting goods manufacturers, Evonik is
developing its VESTAMID molding compounds, which are based
on the plastic polyamide 12, for use in high-grade athletic shoe soles.
Running shoes must provide optimal support for the complex interplay
of muscles, bones and ligaments in the foot. The key is the sole
material. During a ten-kilometer run, runners land roughly 4,300 times
with two to three times their body weight on each foot. The material
should prevent the functional and damping elements from becoming
compressed and thus worthless over time. It should also enable them to
retain their shape despite large temperature fluctuations.
PHOTOGRAPHY: PR
PHOTOGRAPHY: PICTURE ALLIANCE / DPA; GRAPHIC: PICFOUR
High-performance plastic can take a pounding
It was like a call from another world. It was the middle of
the night in Manila (Philippines) when Prof. Richard F. Heck
received the news that he was receiving the Nobel Prize
in Chemistry. The 79-year-old lives there with his family and
“enjoys doing nothing and life itself.” He had pretty much
said goodbye to chemistry when he retired in 1989. “I haven’t
paid very close attention to the latest developments,
but I believe that there is still a lot of chemistry left to be
discovered and developed,” he says.
Heck himself made his groundbreaking discoveries
in the field of organic chemistry more than 40 years ago. In
1967, by using palladium as a catalyst, he succeeded
in linking carbon atoms to form complex molecules. This
method, which every chemistry student today knows
as the Heck reaction, was the foundation for the synthesis
of countless naturally occurring substances for the production
of plastics, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and herbicides.
Heck made this breakthrough in organic chemistry while
working at the laboratories of Hercules Inc., a munitions
plant in Wilmington (Delaware, USA). He left Hercules for
the University of Delaware in 1971. He didn’t become
famous for his research until the 1990s when attempts were
being made to synthesize highly effective toxins—such
as those of marine sponges—as part of the fight against
infections and cancer. Heck and his co-Laureates,
Prof. Ei-ichi Negishi and Prof. Akira Suzuki, whose discoveries
expanded on his work, would have become very rich men
if the results of their research had been patented.
Heck considers the late honor as the ultimate recognition
of his life’s work. “It was a great surprise to me, and I am
very, very grateful.” He is not about to throw a huge party,
though. “I’m quite content to quietly enjoy the feeling of
being a Nobel Laureate,” he says. CHRISTIANE OPPERMANN
adidas Porsche Design Bounce™. The new running shoe absorbs hard impacts
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 12:54:54 Uhr
INFORMING 7
Evonik checks sustainability
Nature in a Tube
Natural cosmetics had for years
been relegated to a niche existence in organic food stores. The
organic products were smelly and
expensive. Creams and lotions
with natural ingredients now enjoy great popularity and healthy
growth rates. Customers wanting
to treat themselves now use
creams and powders bearing
Mother Nature’s stamp of
approval. Even discounters such
as Audi and Lidl have jumped
on the bandwagon.
Today consumers look for
more than just natural ingredients.
Shampoos and creams should also
be the result of sustainable production. In fact, ecological beauty
care is very trendy and the ecological balance sheet of raw materials
and products is more important
than ever to firms and consumers.
How much water and energy are
used? How much CO2 is emitted
over the product’s lifecycle?
An increasing number of international cosmetics companies
are servicing a growing demand
for “organic plus lifestyle,” and
have either acquired natural
cosmetics manufacturers or are
expanding their own organic
lines. The products bear the corresponding quality seals. One example is the seal from Ecocert, one of
the largest organic certification
organizations in Europe. Another
is the “Certified Natural Cosmetics” seal of approval issued by the
Association of German Industries
and Trading Firms for Pharmaceuticals, Health Care Products, Food
Supplements and Personal Hygiene Products (BDIH). Evonik is
working with both organizations
to develop test criteria—which
isn’t surprising given that the Per-
PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTYIMAGES
The organic boom has spread to the mass market for cosmetics. The sector’s suppliers
of renewable raw materials represent a rapidly growing market
To ensure cosmetics made of natural ingredients contribute to sustainability, seals of approval confirm whether the
products are also made with resource-conserving methods
sonal Care Product Line of Evonik
Industries AG’s Consumer Specialities Business Unit includes many
natural raw materials for the cosmetics industry. Fifty-five of these
products already bear the Ecocert
seal. “Market research places
worldwide market potential at between US$15 and US$20 billion,”
says Peter Becker, Sales Manager
and Sustainability Coordinator.
The largest markets are Germany,
France, and the USA. “Overall,
84 percent of the products from
Personal Care are made entirely or
in part from renewable raw materials,” says Becker. “Given the
increasing worldwide depletion of
resources, we hope to further increase this percentage while at the
same time using innovative technologies to manage these sources
responsibly.” Care Specialties
mostly uses natural oils such as
palm, canola, sunflower or coconut oil to make emulsifiers and
tensides. Substances such as sugar
esters can also be used as lipid
replenishers and thickeners
for shampoos and shower gels.
Even active ingredients in antiwrinkle creams are based
on renewable raw materials.
Sugar instead of oil
“To become less reliant on oil, we
are striving to find a way to manufacture current products using
renewable raw materials like
sugar or plant residues,” explains
Dr. Thomas Haas, Head of the
Science-to-Business-Center Bio,
which is cofinanced by the European Union and funded by the
State of North-Rhine Westphalia.
However, using classic chemicals
industry processes, these starting
materials can only be turned
into products by expending lots of
energy and countless chemicals.
Biotechnological processes based
on microorganisms and enzymes
often recycle the renewable
raw materials in a more affordable
and greener manner.
The fact that a raw material
is natural doesn’t necessarily
mean that its use will conserve resources. The processing of natural
materials or their transport from
distant countries is sometimes
very wasteful in terms of energy
and water consumption. This
is why Care Specialties relies on
biotechnological processes such
as enzyme catalysis, microorganisms, or fermentation for the production of ingredients for natural
cosmetics. “Ingredients in
cosmetic products—for example,
wax esters with a high oil content—that contribute to skin care
can be biotechnologically
produced today, as can active
ingredients in anti-aging creams
or lotions,” says Dr. Oliver Thum,
Head of Biotechnical Research
for Consumer Specialties.
One example of what
he means is ceramides. The lipids
protect the skin from drying
and from penetration by foreign
matter. Another is hyaluronic
acid, which acts as a store for water
in the eyes. The substance can
also serve as an active ingredient
in anti-wrinkle creams. It’s a
use that more and more consumers
will be putting it to in the future
due to demographic change.
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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8 INFORMING
Happiness and Millionaires
The Happy Planet Index (HPI) shows that
high consumption of resources does not necessarily
result in a greater sense of happiness
WEALTH DOES NOT EQUAL HAPPINESS
The HPI happiness formula does not refer to material
wealth, but rather is calculated from life expectancy data,
satisfaction, and the ecological footprint
Life expectancy
In years
213,000
millionaires in Canada 2008
-24.1 % versus 2007
Satisfaction
Determined by surveys
77.9
9.4
7.9
Ecological footprint
In gha (global hectares): The ecological footprint measures
the area of the earth’s surface that is needed to maintain
a person’s lifestyle and standard of living over the long term
USA
2,460,000
DEVIATIONS IN THE FIGURES ARE DUE TO ROUNDING
millionaires in the USA 2008
-18.5% versus 2007
HPI VALUES
The average life expectancy is multiplied by life
satisfaction as measured by surveys. The product is
then divided by the ecological footprint
78.5
8.5
70–80
30–39.9
60–69.9
20–29.9
50–59.9
10–19.9
40–49.9
0–9.9
2.3
COSTA RICA
The happiest people in terms of
satisfaction, life expectancy,
and ecological footprint live here.
90 percent of the energy is produced
using renewables. Costa Rica is
expected to be CO2 neutral in 2021
Not reported
The top 15 billionaires
SOURCE: HAPPY PLANET INDEX REPORT 2009, WORLD WEALTH REPORT 2009,
FORBES RICH LIST 2010, HANS-BÖCKLER-STIFTUNG; ILLUSTRATION: PICFOUR
The Forbes list of the super rich for 2010 shows that Mexico’s
cellular phone tycoon Carlos Slim Helú passed Bill Gates and
Warren Buffet for the first time. Following a drop in the year 2009,
there are once again more than 1,000 billionaires worldwide
Name
1 Carlos Slim Helú and family
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
William Gates III
Warren Buffett
Mukesh Ambani
Lakshmi Mittal
Lawrence Ellison
Bernard Arnault
Eike Batista
Amancio Ortega
Karl Albrecht
Ingvar Kamprad and family
Christy Walton and family
Stefan Persson
Li Ka-shing
Jim Walton
Unemployment figures
were rising in the USA as
a result of the recession.
The US Congress
therefore introduced
tax incentives for
companies that hire
new workers
Citizenship
Net worth*
Mexican
53.5
US American
US American
Indian
Indian
US American
French
Brazilian
Spanish
German
Swedish
US American
Swedish
HongKonger
US American
53
47
29
28.7
28
27.5
27
25
23.5
23
22.5
22.4
21
20.7
* IN BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
131,000
millionaires
in Brazil 2008
-8.4% versus
2007
75.9
6.8
5.5
URUGUAY
The residents of Uruguay are socially
responsible, and materialism is not
particularly important to them. Industry
causes a large amount of water pollution,
however. Another major problem
is the disposal of hazardous waste
GLOBAL WEALTH ELITE 2008
BY REGIONS AND NET WORTH
8.6 million millionaires possess US$32.8 trillion—in
Germany alone, 810,000 millionaires possess around
US$2.1 trillion—some 23 percent of Germany’s total net
worth. Worldwide, just under one percent of the
population possesses 38 percent of the world’s net worth
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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09.11.2010 12:12:58 Uhr
INFORMING 9
80.5
78.4
79.1
10.2
7.7
7.9
7.2
5.1
4.2
LUXEMBOURG
SWEDEN
GERMANY
With the highest gross domestic
product per capita in the world,
the residents of Luxembourg
are very happy. However,
the country’s high consumption
leads to enormous CO2
emissions and the world’s
largest ecological footprint
Sweden’s social welfare system works. The
country has one of Europe’s higher gross
domestic product per capita ratings. Unemployment is low, and the people are satisfied. Sweden no longer occupies a leading position when it comes to environmental
protection, however. It ranks 62nd out of
210 countries in terms of CO2 emissions
Alternative energies produced using wind, water, and
thermal energy sources are reducing CO2 emissions.
More work must still be done to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions, however
810,000
millionaires in Germany 2008
-2.7% versus 2007
97,000
362,000
millionaires in Russia 2008
-28.5 % versus 2007
millionaires in
the UK 2008
-26.13 % versus
2007
82.3
6.8
4.9
364,000
JAPAN
millionaires in China 2008
-11.8 % versus 2007
Japan is a country with
a very high life expectancy.
Thanks to low unemployment levels, most of
the residents are satisfied.
Japan has been trying
to reduce its CO2 emissions
since the ratification of the
Kyoto Protocol
84,000
millionaires in India 2008
-31.6 % versus 2007
78.3
9.5
UNITED
ARAB
EMIRATES
57.7
5.4
IRAQ
The Al Basama Al Beeiya Initiative
was recently established
to draw attention to renewable
energies—and to the high
consumption of imported products
1.3
The Iraq war has
exacerbated the
country’s problems.
There is a lot of
poverty, and health
care is catastrophic.
Life expectancy
and satisfaction are
correspondingly low
North America
Millionaires: 2.7 million
Net worth:
US$9.1 trillion
7.2
129,000
millionaires in Australia 2008
-23.4 % versus 2007
40.9
2.8
ZIMBABWE
1.1
Poverty and diseases, primarily AIDS and HIV,
have a devastating effect on the population
Germany
Millionaires:
810,000
Net worth:
US$2.1 trillion
Europe
Millionaires: 2.6 million
Net worth:
US$8.3 trillion
Middle East
Millionaires: 400,000
Net worth:
US$1.4 trillion
Asia Pacific
Millionaires: 2.4 million
Net worth:
US$7.4 trillion
Latin America
Millionaires: 400,000
Net worth:
US$5.8 trillion
Africa
Millionaires: 100,000
Net worth:
US$0.8 trillion
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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10 I N F O R M I N G
Guest Column
The Real Scandal
Crop failures from Canada to Germany to the Black Sea,
droughts and forest fires in Russia, exploding
wheat prices—is the global food crisis of 2008 making
a comeback? Definitely not. It never went away
PHOTOGRAPHY LEFT: WFP, ABOVE:ALIMDI.NET
THE INGREDIENTS of the food
crisis that made headlines in 2008
covered a broad spectrum. They
included dramatic droughts in
Australia, weather-related disasters
and crop failures worldwide, food
prices that increased three-fold
within months, commodities
speculators who pounced on the
agriculture market, skyrocketing
energy costs, a boom in biofuels
production, and bans on exports of
cereals in many countries.
Those were the factors that
sparked angry reactions by hungry
people in more than 30 countries.
The protests led to the fall of the
Haitian government and prompted
leading thinkers, like the heads
of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to publish
a warning. Their message was
clear and simple: Stability and
Ralf Südhoff, 41, is the
UN World Food Programme
spokesman for Germany,
Austria, and Switzerland’s
German-speaking regions
democracy were endangered in
more than 50 countries, and there
had to be a turnaround in the fight
against hunger and in agricultural
policies, they said.
To what degree there has been
a turnaround since 2008 is made
clear by news coverage in recent
months. The price of wheat rose
50 percent in Europe alone in June,
and reached its highest level in the
last 60 years on the commodities
exchange in Chicago (Illinois,
USA). Russia and Canada,
the world’s most important wheat
exporters after the USA, will
export much less wheat in 2010
than planned, and Russia alone
will export about 25 percent less
wheat. Speculators are rediscovering agricultural commodities.
Cereal prices also fluctuate
due to natural causes, and the price
of wheat fell again for a while.
However, anyone browsing in a
supermarket in Germany might
scarcely believe that price increases
are a problem. The extraordinary
price war between German
food retailers is unique worldwide,
with extremely low prices. This
has little to do with the reality on
the world’s markets. In September
the UN’s Food Price Index climbed
to 188 points, only three points
below its high in 2008, and more
than twice as high as in 2000.
It’s a trend with dramatic
consequences in many developing
countries. In Tajikistan the price of
wheat at the start of the year was
up more than 100 percent from
the average pre-crisis price level. In
Sri Lanka, the poorest of the poor
must pay more than twice as much
for rice than before. In Benin,
the price of millet has increased
three-fold. In addition, we
shouldn’t forget countries where
local factors such as internal
conflicts come into play. In Somalia
the price of millet today is up 300
percent from its former level, and
the price of corn has risen more
than 500 percent in Zimbabwe.
A silver lining
This means that about 925 million
people in the world are hungry
today. That’s an increase of
77 million people (about equal to
the population of Germany)
since 2007, the last year before the
world food crisis. But there was
also a paradoxical stroke of luck:
The global economic crisis in
2009 diminished demand for food,
and it was also a year of recordbreaking harvests. Some cereal
warehouses are thus full again,
and new revolts by hungry people,
such as the recent ones in Mozambique, which left 12 dead and
400 injured, remain the exception.
For now. After all, since
2000 the demand for cereals has
almost always exceeded the
global harvest. This points to the
problem behind the forest fires and
“droughts of the century”: The
age of food surpluses is over. Population growth, increasing meat
consumption, and booming biofuel
production have ushered in an
entirely new era. By 2030 humans
will have to produce 50 percent
more food than they do today. And
that means hunger is no longer
only a question of distribution.
Whatever people may think about
genetic engineering, it would
take some time for it to solve this
problem. Seed companies admit
that it will take between 20 and 30
years to develop genetically
engineered seeds for the special
needs of developing countries
that are plagued by droughts. And
it seems doubtful that the booming
agricultural investments by foreign
companies in the developing
countries will help. Dirk Niebel,
Germany’s liberal Minister of
Economic Cooperation and Development, recently described this
controversial type of “land grab” as
a new form of colonialism.
Nevertheless, a radical change
is needed in the fight against
hunger. The agricultural policy in
the northern and southern hemispheres alike must be changed.
Improvements are necessary when
it comes to the implementation
of fair trade practices, new investments, land reforms, and more
food aid. Otherwise the hungry
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I N F O R M I N G 11
By 2030 humans will
have to produce
50 percent more food
than they do today
if everyone is to have
enough to eat
Are We Playing “Green” against Hunger?
Biofuel, biomass, organic steaks: These are a few of the things that
soothe the ecologically correct conscience. And the price is being paid
by millions of people in developing countries. The competition
between the fuel tank, trough, and dinner plate is making food products
scarce and expensive. Is there a way out of this dilemma?
Prof. Uwe Lahl, former director in the Federal Ministry for the Environment,
professor at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, and lecturer at the University
of Indonesia Biomass offers a great opportunity. If we end subsidies for western
countries’ agricultural exports and create new markets for biomass, the farmers in the
developing countries will have a chance to sell their products for fair prices. It would
be possible to vitalize agriculture. There is a lot of unused land in Europe and even
more than in Africa. If we could gain some of that land for agriculture, land we have lost
through misuse in the last 100 years, that would be enough.
Not a contest
New rules
Prof. Reinhard
F. Hüttl, Chair
of the BioEconomyCouncil
and Chairman
of the Research
Rating Steering Group of the Scientific
Council The constantly growing
demand for organic production
cannot be met until we all use
the technologies that are available to us. Here I am referring
especially to green genetic
technology, synthetic biology,
optimized processes in molecular biology, and new approaches
to materials research—above
all in nanotechnology. In
addition to intensified research
there is also a great need for
raising society’s awareness
regarding the issues involved
and gaining widespread acceptance for appropriate measures.
Ilse Aigner,
Member
of the German
Parliament
and Federal
Minister for
Food, Agriculture and Consumer
Protection We are facing a
long-term conflict between the
need for food and for raw
materials. The German government’s strategy for renewable
forms of energy assumes
that the use of biomass for
energy will more than double.
This means we need intelligent
solutions in order to achieve
higher efficiency and higher
yields throughout the entire
production chain. Essentially,
the production of food and feed
must take precedence.
Dr. Robert
B. Zoellick,
President
of the World
Bank While
many people
are worrying
about whether they can fill
up their cars with gasoline,
many fellow humans have to
struggle every day just to
find something to put in their
empty stomachs. The problem
is not just the meals that will
be missed today, or the danger
of social unrest. In addition,
we must be concerned about
the intellectual and physical
development of children and
adults—processes that are
arrested by hunger. We must
recognize this growing emergency and take action. In short,
we desperately need a New
Deal for global food policies.
FOTO: WORLD BANK
More research
FOTO: DEUTSCHER BUNDESTAG
FOTO: BZL GMBH
Vitalization of agriculture
FOTO: GFZ POTSDAM
will not be able to feed themselves.
And though it seems paradoxical,
they may have long since emerged
as the “winners” of the crisis:
About 75 percent of the world’s
hungry are small farmers, work
on farms, or raise livestock. Higher
food prices will give them a better
chance as producers—if they
finally gain access to credit, land
rights, sound advice, or even
just a simple dirt road to the next
marketplace.
But the tragedy of the world
food crisis is that this historic
opportunity is being squandered.
Twenty years ago nearly 20 percent of all development aid
was flowing into rural regions;
today five percent is going to rural
communities. African countries
have promised to invest ten percent of their means in agriculture,
but the actual figure is four percent. And while the UN’s World
Food Programme was assigned
the task of supporting about
115 million of the world’s most
hungry people in 2010, to
date it has not received half of the
funding needed to help them.
Every day, today too, more
people die from hunger-related
causes than perish from AIDS,
tuberculosis, and malaria
combined. The global food crisis
hasn’t gone away. Since 2008
it has been the humanitarian
challenge for the coming decades.
Debating
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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12 S H A P I N G
PHOTOGRAPHY: PICTURE-ALLIANCE/ZUMA PRESS, F1ONLINE
The motto of the
Christmas lights in
the Caretta
Shopping Center
in Tokyo (Japan)
was “Blue Ocean.”
Altogether,
300,000 LEDs
created a sea
of lights last year
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S H A P I N G 13
The Ars Electronica
Center in Linz
(Austria) is
transformed into a
light sculpture at
night. Around 1,100
panes are illuminated by a total of
40,000 lightemitting diodes
Seeing the Light
Once upon a time there were lamps. Nowadays, low-power light-emitting diodes enable
objects to illuminate themselves. Hundreds of thousands of years after the discovery
of fire, LED technology is lighting up our lives and providing undreamed-of possibilities
TEXT TANJA KRÄMER
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14 S H A P I N G
“A new idea is a light that illuminates presences that
had no form for us before the light fell on them.”
Prof. Susanne K. Langer, philosopher, 1895–1985
WHAT MUST IT HAVE FELT LIKE back in the early
Stone Age, hundreds of thousands of years ago, as prehistoric humans gathered around a fire for the first
time? The night was black, the stars shone, and this
still unpredictable, dangerous element crackled as it
fed on the wood. In all directions it gave off a comfortable warmth and projected its flickering, restless
light onto the faces of the assembled company. For a
few hours, the darkness retreated. Back then, our ancient ancestors didn’t know what they had started. In
short, their fire marked the start of the story of artificial light.
The longing for light goes back to the beginning.
Brightness, or light, is a symbol representing goodness and life itself in all world religions. In the Biblical creation myth, God created light immediately after heaven and earth, and Jesus referred to himself as
“the Light of the world” in the New Testament’s Gospel according to John. In a similar fashion, Allah is described in the Koran as “…the Light of the heavens and
the earth.” Light is also viewed positively in philosophy, where it is often associated with enlightenment,
truth, and reason. And of course we often talk about
“seeing the light.”
So it’s understandable that people would want to
produce light artificially. The story of artificial light
is one of continual progress. Like explorers setting
out to discover new lands, the inventors of the torch,
the wick, and the incandescent bulb set out to banish
the darkness and take back at least part of the night.
And their efforts have paid off: Today, night has become day in many places. Light pours out of apartments, and streetlights illuminate sidewalks and
roads. Neon hoardings advertise products, and even
Falling Star,
an LED light by Tobias
Grau. In addition to
being small and
compact, its directed
light and low power
consumption would
impress any designer
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PHOTOGRAPHY: TOBIAS GRAU, TOBIAS TOLLHOPF, HAMBURG (2)
Ingo Maurer named his first LED light, which he designed in 1997, Bellissima Brutta—the “ugly beauty.” A key contemporary
lighting designer, Maurer has been a fan of LED technology from the start and sees the LED as the light of the future
buildings themselves have begun to shine. The technology is becoming ever more sophisticated, and with
current light-emitting diodes, or so-called LEDs, it has
reached a high point in terms of performance and energy efficiency.
For a long time, this development was unimaginable. Until around 150 years ago, the open flame was
the only known source of artificial light. As far back as
40,000 years ago, it burned in hollowed stones filled
with animal fat—the oldest known lamps in existence.
Later, the flame burned on the wicks of candles, on
oil vessels and, starting at the beginning of the 19th
century, in gaslights. The range of these “lamps” was
short, and their light dim. In other words, the open
flame wasn’t an ideal source of light. In fact, the dangers associated with open flames gave rise to the fire
department, whose job it was to prevent the uncontrolled spread of fire. Just under 200 years ago, during
a night in May, a conflagration broke out in 44 Deichstrasse, Hamburg. Ultimately , it was to turn more than
a fourth of the city to ashes. Fifty-five people died, and
20,000 were made homeless.
Night becomes day
Artificial light made its first quantum leap in terms
of quality with the invention of the incandescent
bulb, which was patented by Dr. Thomas Alva Edison
in 1880. The new light source burned brightly and
evenly, didn’t need looking after and, thanks to its relatively cheap production costs and the rapid spread of
electrification, was soon in use almost everywhere.
The year 1906 saw the start of the industrialization
of light in Germany. That was the year in which Dr.
Carl Freiherr Auer von Welsbach registered the Osram
brand and constructed a lamp factory in Berlin. Today,
with incandescent bulbs, halogen lights, compact fluorescent lights, and modern LEDs, the range of light
sources is very wide. “Thanks to today’s technology,
it is possible to fulfill lighting requirements in a number of ways,” says Dr. Iordanis Savvopoulos, who is
Vice President for Technical Solutions in the Inorganic
Materials Business Unit at Evonik Industries AG. There
are light sources for diffuse floodlighting or collimated
beams. And there are colored phosphors and an extremely wide range of luminaires.
The extent to which modern lighting technology
lights up the world nowadays can be seen by looking
at nighttime satellite photographs from NASA. Here,
electricity illuminates the outlines of Europe and the
metropolitan areas of the USA, while the continent of
Africa is scarcely visible. But not everyone is happy
that our planet is so brightly illuminated. At the beginning of the 20th century, many astronomical observatories moved to the country, because the light of the
big cities made it impossible to see the stars. Today astronomers head for desert regions or for volcanoes located in lonely spots .
“Light has an extremely ambivalent character,” says
Dr. Franz Hölker, Head of the Leibniz Association’s research group “Verlust der Nacht” (Losing the Night),
which is concerned with the consequences of nocturnal illumination. “On the one hand, it is associated with
prosperity and safety—the highly developed countries
are much more brightly lit. But above a certain threshold, we also have to expect negative effects.” Today
many people complain that too much light is robbing
them of their sleep. Their sleep-wake cycles are disrupted by the constant illumination. “Attitudes
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The Craigieburn Bypass in Melbourne (Australia) is a completely new highway design. Drive-by aesthetics. Colored LEDs instead
of blazing neon. Quiet, comfortable colors that are easy on the eye and don’t dazzle. The view of the road remains unrestricted
toward lighting are changing,” says Hölker, who
carries out research on light. “Many people are rethinking the sense and purpose of illumination.” The
quest for ever more light is evolving into a desire for
targeted lighting and the deliberate creation of islands
of darkness. In addition, it is becoming obvious that
the requirements associated with artificial light today
are much more demanding than used to be the case. It
has to glow, for example, without producing damaging side effects for people or the environment. It has
to shine, but only in the desired direction. Older light
sources can no longer measure up to requirements
such as these. However, a successor is already here in
the form of the LED.
Versatile, long-lived, energy-efficient LEDs
Silently and unnoticed by many of us, the new technology has found its way into many products. Most modern cars are equipped with a hundred or more LEDs—
in the interior, the taillights, or the instrument panel.
LEDs shine from traffic lights and illuminate underpasses and designer lamps. Flat-screen TVs and monitors exploit LEDs, as do cellphones and advertising
billboards.
The new technology combines a number of advantages—it’s efficient, long-lived, and versatile. It is these
properties that put it out in front of previously standard
technologies such as incandescent bulbs and compact
fluorescents. The incandescent bulb in a particular is
hungry for energy. “The bulb turns 95 percent of the
energy it consumes into heat,” says Dr. Claudia Wickleder, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Siegen and an expert on phosphors. In times
of climatic change and scarce resources, that is unac-
ceptable. The triumphal march of the LED is hardly
surprising. LEDs produce their light using semiconductor crystals, which are excited electrically. Various colors can be produced by selecting appropriate
semiconductor materials or introducing phosphors.
The luminous efficacy of an LED can reach up to 150
lumens per watt. The equivalent figure for a normal
incandescent bulb is at most 15 lumens per watt, while
a compact fluorescent produces a maximum of 75 lumens per watt. “The LED is the most efficient of all
current light sources,” says Wickleder. And thanks
to their economy, LED lights represent a worthwhile
investment. After all, one fifth of the electricity consumed worldwide is used for lighting.
The lifetime of the LED is also much higher than
that of an incandescent bulb. Whereas the light goes
out on an incandescent bulb after an average of 1,000
hours, an LED can operate for up to 80,000 hours. Unlike compact fluorescent lights, which contain mercury and have to be disposed of as special waste, LEDs
are based on semiconductor technology and are completely non-toxic. “The LED will become the light
source of the future,” says Wickleder. According to
Savvopoulos, “the LED is an ideal technology from an
ecological point of view.”
Legislative requirements such as the ban on incandescent bulbs in the European Union (EU) or future
regulations requiring daytime running lights on automobiles also favor the spread of LED light. In Germany
alone, the new light sources should reduce power consumption by 7.5 billion kilowatt-hours every year. A
similar prohibition is already in force in Australia, and
many other countries plan to follow. The USA is banning incandescent bulbs starting in 2012. In 2007
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S H A P I N G 17
“Light is energy and it’s also information—content, form,
and structure. It’s the potential for everything.”
Prof. Dr. David Bohm, physicist, 1917–1992
China announced it would phase them out within a decade. The high-pressure mercury vapor lamp, which
is often used for street lighting, is to be taken off the
market throughout the EU in 2015.
These developments represent an enormous market opportunity for LED technology even thought its
products are still relatively expensive. At present an
LED lamp with a screw fitting currently costs between
€10 and €20. Special lamps can cost up to €80. Nevertheless, analysts expect the market for LEDs to increase in size by a factor of two or even three over the
next few years. The US company iSuppli Corporation
is currently forecasting a volume of $14.6 billion for
the year 2013.
A giant LED ball projects
virtual landscapes of
Taiwan at the island’s
pavilion at Expo 2010
in Shanghai
PHOTOGRAPHY: SARAH J. DUNCAN/ARCARDIA, BAI MU/IMAGINECHINA/LAIF (2)
Light from voltage
“Many interesting technologies in which I see a great
deal of potential are currently under development,”
says Hölker. The lighting manufacturers are working
on improving the color fidelity of lamps and achieving an even higher energy yield. And the successor of
the LED is already at the starting line. Organic LEDs
(OLEDs), which consist of ultra-thin organic layers
reminiscent of plastic films, are regarded as being the
light source of the future. When a voltage is connected
to them, they start to glow. Although research in this
area is still at an early stage, the scientists are hoping to
open up totally new possibilities, such as organic displays on screens and mobile phones. OLEDs could also
be used to illuminate large areas like a shining wallpaper. But the application of such modern models alone is
not enough, in the opinion of experts such as Hölker:
“It’s important to know what we really need in terms
of light. Anything that goes beyond this is in ef-
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18 S H A P I N G
“Thus, too, the virtue of the candle lies not in the wax that
leaves its trace, but in its light.”
AquaJelly is an electrically
powered jellyfish that controls
its own energy supply. The
main medium of communication
is light. AquaJelly is fitted with
11 infrared LEDs which it uses to
transmit pulsed infrared signals.
The project is being carried out by
Festo AG & Co. KG, a company
in the automation technology sector
PHOTOGRAPHY: HEINER MÜLLER-ELSNER/AGENTUR FOCUS, PICTURE-ALLIANCE/ANP, PHILIPS
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, pilot and author, 1900–1944
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 14:40:58 Uhr
The Audi R8 was one of the first cars to be equipped with LED headlights. LED lights look good, the light they
produce can be more precisely adjusted, there is no wear, and the power consumption is lower
fect light pollution.” For example, he demands that
street lights be better focused, so that only the ground
is illuminated, and not the entire heavens.
“This could be accomplished effectively using LEDs
and modern lenses such as those produced by Evonik,”
Savvopoulos predicts. The light from a compact fluorescent lamp or a fluorescent tube is created in a hollow space in which a gas discharge emits ultraviolet
radiation in all directions. The LED works differently.
Because the light is produced by electrically excited
semiconductor crystals, it can be easily focused. Specially ground lenses can further boost this effect and
direct the light where it is required.
Focused on target
LEDs also offer many possible variations in terms of
color temperature. Different colors are produced using different semiconductor crystals. Additional phosphors can then also be introduced. Depending on the
kind of light desired, a manufacturer can therefore
combine the colors to match requirement or put different colored LEDs next to one another. This technology is actually used to simulate the warm white
light of the incandescent bulb. “Because LEDs do not
emit any UV light, they have a neutral effect on many
insects,” says Savvopoulos. “This would make LEDs
very suitable for street lighting.” The first test roads
in New Zealand, Spain, and Canada have already been
equipped with LED lights.
Researchers have recently come to recognize that
artificial light does not follow the example of fire, but
of daylight. The latter differs from our conventional
artificial light sources in terms of its color temperature. Whereas a normal incandescent bulb has a color
temperature of just over 2,000 Kelvin (K) and a halogen lamp of 3,000 K, the sun shines at a color temperature of between 5,000 K and 8,000 K. Psychologists have discovered that light with exactly this color
temperature increases humans’ sense of well-being
and their ability to concentrate. It is possible to simulate this kind of light using modern light sources such
as fluorescent lights and LEDs.
The way light influences behavior was experienced by a group of school students in Hamburg in an
experiment carried out by the Philips company. For
this experiment, variable lighting systems with different color temperatures were mounted in a number of
classrooms. The teachers could select light sources on a
scale between “calming” and “exciting.” The students’
concentration and reading speed increased. Hamburg
has now equipped 1,000 classrooms with the lighting
system. Philips still uses fluorescent lights for cost reasons. However, the electronics company recently presented the first models of the system equipped with
energy-saving LEDs. Artificial light, it seems, is slowly
evolving in line with the needs of humans and the environment. LEDs are capable of shining in all the different colors—but they are definitely green.
S U M M A RY
One fifth of global power consumption is used for lighting.
LED technology represents a quantum jump in the
area of artificial lighting and will change our everyday life.
In Germany alone, it should be possible to reduce power
consumption by 7.5 billion kilowatt-hours a year.
LEDs consume less power than compact fluorescent
lights and open up completely new possibilities.
•
Philips is developing a white light
OLED module. To
make it easier for
users to operate
the lighting
system, the organic
light-emitting
diode operates
with the normal
mains voltage
•
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 14:46:37 Uhr
A Trip through Time
at the Speed of Light
The desire to turn night into day has inspired philosophers and inventors ever since
the discovery of fire. Join us on light's journey from the oil lamp to the LED
AROUND 700,000 YEARS AGO
Fire was the first source of artificial light
used by humans. There is clear evidence
that our ancestors deliberately created
fires 700,000 years ago; ambiguous
sources go back much further.
1879
Dr. Thomas Alva Edison wins the race to produce the first
commercially usable incandescent bulb. After many experiments,
a filament of carbonized bamboo proves suitable for the task.
AROUND 2500 BC
In Egypt, flat oil
lamps with floating
wicks are used for
illumination for the
first time. Torches
impregnated with
pitch, tar, or resin
are also used.
1906
Dr. Carl Freiherr Auer
von Welsbach registers
the Osram brand at the
imperial patent office in
Berlin. On April 17,
1906 the trademark is
registered as a word mark
for “electrical incandescent
and arc lights.” It stands
for the metals osmium and
tungsten (wolfram in
German), from which
incandescent filaments
are made.
1939
General Electric
purchases a patent
from Dr. Edmund
Germer , a German
inventor, who had
invented a gas
discharge lamp
with a fluorescent
internal coating
13 years previously.
GE proves to be
very good at selling
these fluorescent
tube lights. Today,
70 percent of all
lamps are of this type.
AROUND 1805
Sir Humphry Davy,
a British chemistry
professor, constructs
an electric arc light
in which an arc is
created between
two carbon rods.
The lamp has almost
no practical use
at first.
AROUND 160 AD
Wax candles are first
used for religious
purposes in Rome,
while torches and oil
lamps remain the
common sources of
light in households.
1854
Benjamin Silliman, a US professor,
develops a process for distilling crude oil.
The resulting petroleum becomes the
most important source of artificial light
worldwide within a few years.
1885
With the gas mantle invented
by Austrian chemist Dr. Carl Freiherr
Auer von Welsbach, it becomes
possible to crate a bright, white
flame. In Berlin, the first public
power plant supplies power
for everyone and electric light finds
its way into private households.
AROUND 2000
The LED triumphs in ever
more applications, including
operating room lights.
With their low-power
consumption, long-lasting
compact diodes have
also found their way into
car headlights, traffic
lights, pocket flashlights,
and neon signs.
AROUND 1990
The revolution in lighting
is just three to five millimeters in size and is
called the light-emitting
diode (LED). The semiconductor component
has also been available in
blue—and thus in almost
all colors—since the
1990s. Its great advantage is that it wastes practically no energy as heat.
1862
Prof. Friedrich Wöhler becomes the first person
to synthesize acetylene, which is subsequently
widely used in coach and bicycle lights. The gas is
produced inside the light from calcium carbide.
AROUND 280 BC
The huge lighthouse of
Alexandria is one of
the seven wonders of the
ancient world. It is around
150 meters high and
alongside the Pyramids of
Giza is probably the
tallest construction in
the world.
2010
The organic light-emitting diode (OLED), which is made
of plastic film, represents the future of lighting.
OLEDs glow when a current is passed through them.
It will be possible to produce not only flat panel
lights and ultra-thin luminaires but also transparent
luminaires such as wallpaper lights.
1882
The company
Telegraphen BauAnstalt von Siemens
& Halske equips
Berlin’s Potsdamer
Platz and Leipziger
Straße with electric
ights. This marks
the first public use
of electricity in
the German capital.
AROUND 1960
In the 1950s and 1960s
the floor lamp—“a package for the light bulb”—
with its classic shade
becomes part of
the furniture in German
living rooms and thus
a symbol of coziness.
1980
Compact fluorescent
lights have especially
compact designs and
boast much higher efficiencies than conventional incandescent bulbs
(80 percent lower power
consumption). Today’s
models have lifetimes of
more than 6,000 hours.
Plastic lens
Connecting
wire
Semiconductor
chip
Reflector
Anode
Cathode
Facts & Figures
LED savings potential in Germany
€3.5 billion a year
18 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year
11 billion tons of CO2 a year
3 coal-fired power plants with 700 megawatts of capacity
5.4 million metric tons of hard coal a year
LEDs shine efficiently
Normal incandescent light p 12 lumens per watt
Halogen light p 20 lumens per watt
Compact fluorescent light p 60 lumens per watt
Fluorescent tube p 75 lumens per watt
Colored LED p 50 lumens per watt (8 to 90 lumens per watt)
White LED p 50 to 150 lumens per watt
OLED p (maximum 90 lumens per watt)
The most efficient white LEDs currently achieve
a luminous efficacy of 240 lumens per watt in the optimal case
The more lumens per watt of power a phosphor
radiates, the more efficiently it converts the absorbed energy
into visible light
Light source, color temperature in kelvin (K)
Candlelight p 1,900 K
Sodium vapor flame p 2,000 K
Incandescent light, fluorescent light (warm white) 2,700 K
Halogen light p 3,000 K
Fluorescent light (cold white) p 4,000 K
Xenon light p 4,500 K
Morning sun p 5,000 K
Midday sun p 5,800 K
Daylight lamp p 6,500 K
LEDs in all the colors of white
LED color tone, color temperature
Cold white•white p 6,500–10,000 K
True white•daylight white•medium white p 4,500–5,000 K
Warm white•halogen white p 2,700–3,500 K
OLED SANDWICH
Glass cover
Cathode
Light-emitting plastic
Conductive plastic
Transparent anode
Glass
Power flow
Light
2005
The facade of the Torre Agbar
in Barcelona (Spain) is a work
of art using the medium of
light. It was created by the
French architect Jean Nouvel.
The 32 stories are lit up
at night by 4,500 colored
light-emitting diodes.
2009
The Ars Electronica Center in Linz (Austria) shows just what an illuminated facade of LEDs
can do. The facade is alive and can change color in a flash. It can even display flowing
movements and blends. The annual power consumption of the center, which uses 40,000
red, blue, white, and green LEDs, corresponds to that of just seven average households.
ILLUSTRATION: GOLDEN SECTION GRAPHICS. PHOTOGRAPHY: JUPITERIMAGES, AKG (4), ULLSTEIN (3), BA HUBER, MESSE FRANKFURT EXHIBITION GMBH/PETRA WENZEL, INGO MAURER, PR (3), F1ONLINE
E_21-24_Klapper_Licht 2-3
08.11.2010 15:15:28 Uhr
A Trip through Time
at the Speed of Light
The desire to turn night into day has inspired philosophers and inventors ever since
the discovery of fire. Join us on light's journey from the oil lamp to the LED
AROUND 700,000 YEARS AGO
Fire was the first source of artificial light
used by humans. There is clear evidence
that our ancestors deliberately created
fires 700,000 years ago; ambiguous
sources go back much further.
1879
Dr. Thomas Alva Edison wins the race to produce the first
commercially usable incandescent bulb. After many experiments,
a filament of carbonized bamboo proves suitable for the task.
AROUND 2500 BC
In Egypt, flat oil
lamps with floating
wicks are used for
illumination for the
first time. Torches
impregnated with
pitch, tar, or resin
are also used.
1906
Dr. Carl Freiherr Auer
von Welsbach registers
the Osram brand at the
imperial patent office in
Berlin. On April 17,
1906 the trademark is
registered as a word mark
for “electrical incandescent
and arc lights.” It stands
for the metals osmium and
tungsten (wolfram in
German), from which
incandescent filaments
are made.
1939
General Electric
purchases a patent
from Dr. Edmund
Germer , a German
inventor, who had
invented a gas
discharge lamp
with a fluorescent
internal coating
13 years previously.
GE proves to be
very good at selling
these fluorescent
tube lights. Today,
70 percent of all
lamps are of this type.
AROUND 1805
Sir Humphry Davy,
a British chemistry
professor, constructs
an electric arc light
in which an arc is
created between
two carbon rods.
The lamp has almost
no practical use
at first.
AROUND 160 AD
Wax candles are first
used for religious
purposes in Rome,
while torches and oil
lamps remain the
common sources of
light in households.
1854
Benjamin Silliman, a US professor,
develops a process for distilling crude oil.
The resulting petroleum becomes the
most important source of artificial light
worldwide within a few years.
1885
With the gas mantle invented
by Austrian chemist Dr. Carl Freiherr
Auer von Welsbach, it becomes
possible to crate a bright, white
flame. In Berlin, the first public
power plant supplies power
for everyone and electric light finds
its way into private households.
AROUND 2000
The LED triumphs in ever
more applications, including
operating room lights.
With their low-power
consumption, long-lasting
compact diodes have
also found their way into
car headlights, traffic
lights, pocket flashlights,
and neon signs.
AROUND 1990
The revolution in lighting
is just three to five millimeters in size and is
called the light-emitting
diode (LED). The semiconductor component
has also been available in
blue—and thus in almost
all colors—since the
1990s. Its great advantage is that it wastes practically no energy as heat.
1862
Prof. Friedrich Wöhler becomes the first person
to synthesize acetylene, which is subsequently
widely used in coach and bicycle lights. The gas is
produced inside the light from calcium carbide.
AROUND 280 BC
The huge lighthouse of
Alexandria is one of
the seven wonders of the
ancient world. It is around
150 meters high and
alongside the Pyramids of
Giza is probably the
tallest construction in
the world.
2010
The organic light-emitting diode (OLED), which is made
of plastic film, represents the future of lighting.
OLEDs glow when a current is passed through them.
It will be possible to produce not only flat panel
lights and ultra-thin luminaires but also transparent
luminaires such as wallpaper lights.
1882
The company
Telegraphen BauAnstalt von Siemens
& Halske equips
Berlin’s Potsdamer
Platz and Leipziger
Straße with electric
ights. This marks
the first public use
of electricity in
the German capital.
AROUND 1960
In the 1950s and 1960s
the floor lamp—“a package for the light bulb”—
with its classic shade
becomes part of
the furniture in German
living rooms and thus
a symbol of coziness.
1980
Compact fluorescent
lights have especially
compact designs and
boast much higher efficiencies than conventional incandescent bulbs
(80 percent lower power
consumption). Today’s
models have lifetimes of
more than 6,000 hours.
Plastic lens
Connecting
wire
Semiconductor
chip
Reflector
Anode
Cathode
Facts & Figures
LED savings potential in Germany
€3.5 billion a year
18 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year
11 billion tons of CO2 a year
3 coal-fired power plants with 700 megawatts of capacity
5.4 million metric tons of hard coal a year
LEDs shine efficiently
Normal incandescent light p 12 lumens per watt
Halogen light p 20 lumens per watt
Compact fluorescent light p 60 lumens per watt
Fluorescent tube p 75 lumens per watt
Colored LED p 50 lumens per watt (8 to 90 lumens per watt)
White LED p 50 to 150 lumens per watt
OLED p (maximum 90 lumens per watt)
The most efficient white LEDs currently achieve
a luminous efficacy of 240 lumens per watt in the optimal case
The more lumens per watt of power a phosphor
radiates, the more efficiently it converts the absorbed energy
into visible light
Light source, color temperature in kelvin (K)
Candlelight p 1,900 K
Sodium vapor flame p 2,000 K
Incandescent light, fluorescent light (warm white) 2,700 K
Halogen light p 3,000 K
Fluorescent light (cold white) p 4,000 K
Xenon light p 4,500 K
Morning sun p 5,000 K
Midday sun p 5,800 K
Daylight lamp p 6,500 K
LEDs in all the colors of white
LED color tone, color temperature
Cold white•white p 6,500–10,000 K
True white•daylight white•medium white p 4,500–5,000 K
Warm white•halogen white p 2,700–3,500 K
OLED SANDWICH
Glass cover
Cathode
Light-emitting plastic
Conductive plastic
Transparent anode
Glass
Power flow
Light
2005
The facade of the Torre Agbar
in Barcelona (Spain) is a work
of art using the medium of
light. It was created by the
French architect Jean Nouvel.
The 32 stories are lit up
at night by 4,500 colored
light-emitting diodes.
2009
The Ars Electronica Center in Linz (Austria) shows just what an illuminated facade of LEDs
can do. The facade is alive and can change color in a flash. It can even display flowing
movements and blends. The annual power consumption of the center, which uses 40,000
red, blue, white, and green LEDs, corresponds to that of just seven average households.
ILLUSTRATION: GOLDEN SECTION GRAPHICS. PHOTOGRAPHY: JUPITERIMAGES, AKG (4), ULLSTEIN (3), BA HUBER, MESSE FRANKFURT EXHIBITION GMBH/PETRA WENZEL, INGO MAURER, PR (3), F1ONLINE
E_21-24_Klapper_Licht 2-3
08.11.2010 15:15:28 Uhr
20 S H A P I N G
The Next Generation
LED technology is not only taking over the lighting industry.
It also shines from flat-screen displays and is part of LED lenses.
UV LEDs can even disinfect water
TEXT KATRIN BACH
are revolutionizing light. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs)
already achieve much higher energy efficiency levels
and offer more design freedom than is possible with
incandescent bulbs or compact fluorescent lights.
LEDs are gaining ground fast in a wide range of lighting applications. They are components in automobiles—where they act as turn signal lights—in traffic
lights, and bedside lights. Soon these environmentally
friendly light sources will also be taking over our living rooms. And it’s not just the lighting industry that’s
putting its faith in LED technology. The emerging LED
market will provide products from Evonik Industries
AG with a large number of new opportunities. The
applications involved range from advertising signs to
water disinfection.
The latest high-performance LEDs should last for
20 to 25 years; an incandescent bulb, by contrast, burns
for just 800 hours on average. Thomas Hermann, Head
of the Evonik’s Inorganic Materials Business Unit, sees
a good business opportunity here. “The LED evolution
has already begun,” he says. “The LED market is expected to post growth rates of more than 20 percent a
year. We are firmly convinced that the LED is becoming an effective lighting solution for everyday use and
will enable each of us to save energy.”
The invisible LEDs
At the heart of LED technology are the lenses that surround it. These can be manufactured from glass or
plastic. Evonik offers optimal solutions for both possibilities. For example, in a joint venture with the Cristal
Material Corporation of Taiwan, Evonik has developed glass lenses for the next generation of LEDs under the trade name SAVOSIL. The innovative lenses
are used together with white high-end LEDs—the lighting technology of tomorrow. Warm-white LED lights
Thomas Hermann,
Head of the
Inorganic Materials
Business Unit at
Evonik, is already
convinced that
LED technology
will light up our
everyday life in the
future
will replace conventional light sources such as halogen and compact fluorescent lights step by step. In addition, the new types of light source are also suitable
for use in scanners, portable projectors, and as background lighting for flat-screen displays (LCD TVs) and
computers.
The LED lenses are manufactured from AEROSIL
and DYNASYLAN using the SIVARASOL-gel technology patented by Evonik. Here, a dispersion of AEROSIL (sol state) is cast into the desired form. Following
several treatment stages in the oven, the content of the
casting gels and forms a transparent, extremely pure
silica glass. The finished glass also protects the phosphors of the LED against moisture and heat, making
the device suitable for external lighting applications.
The sol-gel transformation makes it possible to manufacture glass lenses in any shape and in reproducible quality. Whether the LED is custom-made or designed in a complex manner, the designer’s creativity
has free reign.
Evonik can also exploit its expertise in the area of
plastics. With PLEXIMID TT70, a molding compound
of polymethylmethacrylimide (PMMI), Evonik offers
another material that is especially suitable for light
conductors and lenses—for example in vehicle headlights. In particular, PMMI can stand up to the especially high thermal loads to which high-performance
LED spotlights are subjected. This application de-
PHOTOGRAPHY: EVONIK INDUSTRIES (2), OSRAM, EVONIK INDUSTRIES/MONTAGE: PICFOUR
LOW POWER, LOTS OF LIGHT—LED luminaires
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S H A P I N G 25
In an incandescent bulb,
the filament glows to
produce light. LED lights
do not have a filament.
Instead they rely on many
small light-emitting
diodes for their light.
These LEDs are based on
semiconductor crystals
mands high heat-distortion resistance and good
optical properties. PLEXIMID TT70 fulfills both of
these requirements. Like the silica glass made from
AEROSIL, the special molding compound permits a
wide range of design possibilities.
The area of illuminated advertising is also being
taken over by the LED. Colored neon advertising using
the design material PLEXIGLAS has long been a part
of everyday life in today’s big cities. Innovative technology from Evonik helps to combine climate protection and cost-effectiveness in this area. Specifically,
the acrylic glass experts from Evonik have developed
PLEXIGLAS truLED for modern LED technology and
matched it perfectly to the corresponding color coordinates of the individual LEDs. As a result, it has a
high light transmittance and extremely good light scattering properties. These features reduce the power
consumption of objects equipped with LEDs by up to
40 percent compared with conventional acrylic glass.
This combination of properties makes it possible to
use modern LED technology in an extremely efficient
way, while keeping power consumption to a minimum.
Even in the case of compact constructions, unwanted
and interfering hot spots or luminance fluctuations
can be avoided. When it comes to especially flat, largearea illuminated displays, signs, or citylight posters,
illuminated-advertising professionals put their faith
in PLEXIGLAS EndLighten, a light-diffusing, transMartin Hoffmann is an
expert on lighting
applications at Evonik.
He and his team
developed the new
PLEXIGLAS EndLighten acrylic glass,
which makes
illuminated displays
appear brighter
parent acrylic glass (PMMA) that has special lightconducting properties. Illuminated signs based on
PLEXIGLAS EndLighten are used in Shanghai’s Pudong
airport. One of their great advantages is their low energy consumption. The acrylic glass sheets can be illuminated from the edges and evenly distribute the
light fed in over their entire surfaces. “When using
conventional acrylic glass, it is necessary to backlight
the entire sheet. Naturally, that requires several light
sources, which in turn means higher power consumption,” says Martin Hoffmann, a product manager at
Evonik, who is also an expert on lighting applications.
Evonik’s lighting professionals now plan to open up additional markets through the launch of a new series of
products that optimally exploit LED technology. Their
predecessors were lightly cloudy, due to the embedded pigments that create the diffusion. “We have redefined and reworked these diffuser pigments," says
Hoffmann. "Because the new PLEXIGLAS EndLighten
is now transparent, the front of the sheets is actually
much brighter.” Matt surfaces also appear brighter because the light is more strongly directed forward, toward the viewer.
UV LEDs provide clean water
LEDs are also used to activate chemical processes (ultraviolet (UV) polymerization). One particularly intelligent application is a UV LED that can destroy pathogens and thus disinfect water. By attacking the DNA of
the germs, the radiation prevents the germs from reproducing. UV LEDs offer an environmentally friendly
and cost-effective alternative to low-pressure mercury-vapor lamps and are distinguished by their robust and compact nature. As far as the UV LED is concerned, the challenge is to ensure that it is on a par with
the LEDs used in the household in terms of efficiency
and operating life.
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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26 I N S P I R I N G
Expeditions Beyond the Familiar
“Common Purpose” is an international network of people who want to make a difference.
For his report in Evonik Magazine, Martin Kuhna participated in two workshops in Essen
and Hamburg and talked to “Common Purpose” founder Julia Middleton, one of the world’s
most sought-after management and policy consultants
TEXT MARTIN KUHNA
PHOTOGRAPHY CATRIN MORITZ
The participants in Essen discussed their ideas for
two days. The varied program included workshops, excursions, plenary sessions, and group
work in rotating teams
Julia Middleton, the
founder of “Common
Purpose,” specializes in
changing people’s
perspectives. She brings
together people who
would never meet at
work, even though they
have lots in common
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I N S P I R I N G 27
AT FIRST GLANCE one might wonder just what the
participants of “Common Purpose” have in common
as professionals. Kristina Wendland is the manager of
the Sir Peter Ustinov Foundation in Düsseldorf, which
provides humanitarian aid and runs educational initiatives for children. Elfriede Eckl is an accountant and
tax advisor at the Frankfurt-based financial services
provider Ernst & Young. Klaus Wermker was for many
years the Director of the Office of Urban Development
in Essen and is now an honorary professor at the Universität Duisburg-Essen. Mate Gaspar from Budapest
(Hungary) is the Deputy Program Director of the Arts
& Culture Program of the Open Society Foundation. So
what do they have in common? They are meeting today to find out just that: how managers from very different sectors can use their knowledge and experience
to achieve a shared socially beneficial goal. In other
words, they’re looking for a common purpose.
Hans Rudolf Wöhrl is an entrepreneur. Dorothee
Vieth is a violin teacher who does competitive sports.
After an accident she became walking-impaired, and
she now uses a handbike. Esther Bejarano is a survi-
vor of the famous girl orchestra of Auschwitz. Ian Kiru
Karan is a self-made man from Sri Lanka who is known
in Hamburg as the “Container King” and was recently
appointed the city’s Senator for Economic Affairs.
These four people also seem to have little in common.
However, all of them are giving presentations on the
same day in a seminar at “Common Purpose,” a nonprofit organization founded in the UK in 1989. Today it
is active in more than 70 cities in 12 countries, and it’s
still growing. That’s certainly true of Germany, where
“Common Purpose” has established chapters since
1998 in Hanover, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, the Ruhr region, and Thuringia.
The programs it organizes are aimed at “executives” or
“leaders”—terms that managers use in Germany. Because of the organization’s British roots, many English
terms are used in its events, which are thus often misunderstood as seminars where only managers learn
“social skills” for the benefit of their respective companies. However, at “Common Purpose” leaders and
executives also include decision-makers in municipal
administrations and in social and cultural institu-
Mate Gaspar is the
Deputy Program Director
of the Arts & Culture
Program of the Open
Society Foundation in
Budapest. He participated
in the “CP” event
“Managers from All
Professions” in Hamburg
and learned that timing
is vital, even in extreme
situations
There was a lot to talk about
even during the coffee
breaks and at lunch. The
visitors had plenty of topics
to choose from
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28 I N S P I R I N G
tions. At the events it organizes, all of the participants are encouraged to find ways to work together
for the benefit of society at large.
Julia Middleton founded “Common Purpose” 21
years ago and is the organization’s CEO. After completing her studies at the London School of Economics, she worked for many years at the “Industrial Society” think tank, which is organized as a foundation and
is known today as the “Work Foundation.” Here she
addressed the issue of how to combine efficiency and
a high quality of life in the work environment. With
this experience as a backup, she established “Common
Purpose” after recognizing the potential of an innovative type of leadership that is oriented toward shared
social goals. In spite of her resonant title of Chief Executive Officer, Middleton doesn’t look like a career
woman. Her disregard for the business world’s dress
code is almost defiant. She also ignores linguistic insider codes, as she illustrates with the following anecdote: Once when she was on a visit to India, “Common
Purpose” volunteers had acted out a sketch for her. In
a gently mocking manner, they depicted their compa-
nies and the British, American, and German managers
who love to talk about “win-win” situations and want
to see the term on every page of every report. In the
sketch, this mantra started to run amok: “ Win-win?”
“Win-win-win!” “Win-win-win-win” etc.
No insider affectations
Middleton laughs like a girl as she tells the story, while
raising her eyebrows somewhat mockingly—a play of
facial expressions that often accompanies her comments. Although “win-win” is ultimately a basic principle of “Common Purpose,” she doesn’t think much
of such insider affectations. She points out that “Common Purpose” aims to break through the kind of thinking that regards everything only from the perspective
of one’s own activities, company or institution. From
this extreme perspective, the rest of the world consists of clueless laymen, people who are not employees of one’s company, non-social workers, non-doctors, non-artists and so on. According to Middleton,
the discussions at “Common Purpose” events bring
quick results in “a thousand little ways.” For exam-
Hans Rudolf Wöhrl is a
successful investment
entrepreneur who likes
to fly. He managed
the restructuring of LTU
Esther Bejarano is a one of the last
survivors of the girl orchestra of
Auschwitz. She is a cofounder and
Chair of the International Auschwitz
Committee and the honorary Chair
of the Association of Persecutees of
the Nazi Regime, and has received
numerous awards. She told her story
in Hamburg to show that in life there is
always a choice
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I N S P I R I N G 29
ple, an airport manager might deliver unsold newspapers to the nearest prison instead of throwing them
away. Or the police authorities might stop sending uniformed officers into hospital emergency departments
in problem neighborhoods, because this causes people who need medical help to flee in panic. Or a company might come to an agreement with local people
about the organization of a new night shift that would
be noisy but would generate new jobs. In each of these
cases, managers would have conferred beforehand.
Middleton even regards people who are active in citizens’ initiatives as leaders.
Basically, “Common Purpose” would like to persuade all managers to become active in citizens’ initiatives and thus become leaders outside their respective professional areas. “You have to stand up and do
something—even if you initially don’t feel that a certain
issue has anything to do with your special area of expertise,” she says. After all, if a society left everything
to be done exclusively by the experts, too much would
remain “in between” their areas of expertise: unsolved
problems and unused potential. In order to keep things
“You have to stand up and do
something,” says Julia Middleton
from getting too abstract, “Common Purpose” uses the
city as its standard of measurement. Taking the city
as a shared basis makes it easier for people to look beyond the familiar, says Middleton. For seminar participants it is often a revelation when they learn to look at
aspects of their familiar city through the eyes of other
people. Cities and municipalities in particular are suffering greatly from the fact that ever-decreasing resources are available for coping with ever-increasing
problems. The organization’s goal is to persuade leaders to work together to exploit unused potential. Their
focus on urban structures does not limit the participants’ perspective. “Common Purpose” promotes the
exchange of ideas between different cities. Essen
Dorothee Vieth is a violin
teacher. After a serious traffic
accident, she started to ride a
handbike. At the Paralympics in
Beijing (China) in 2008 she
won two bronze medals, and
she was named Hamburg’s
Woman Athlete of the Year
PHOTOGRAPHY: BLIND (2), BLIND
The percussionist and actor Christian von Richthofen opens a workshop
in Hamburg by practicing timing to music together with his group
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30 I N S P I R I N G
“Common Purpose” is an urban organization that aims to make a difference
is a good example. Leaders and managers from the
region but also from other German cities as well as the
UK and Hungary examined different attempts to further develop the region socially and economically in
spite of limited public budgets. Essen attracted the interest of “Common Purpose” as a case study because
it aims to promote structural change through cultural
projects in particular, and because it is engaging in cooperative projects with 52 other cities during its reign
as the European Capital of Culture in 2010. For example, the seminar participants talked to the Mayor of Essen about “political leadership in spite of empty public
coffers.” They listened to an orientation presentation
from the former urban development expert. They con-
ducted discussions with cultural managers, museum
directors, and art gallery owners. At the beginning of
the seminar, Annabel von Klenck, the “CP” Program
Director in Essen, said, “Ask questions! After all, that’s
the special thing about Common Purpose.” And the
seminar participants complied. They drew comparisons between what they had heard and experiences in
their own cities and in their own professions. But even
though they were ready to “learn something” from the
seminar, they made these comparisons in a very critical manner. It’s therefore no surprise that Middleton
cannot imagine Introducing “Common Purpose” in
countries where there is no freedom of expression.
The right timing
Even if the participants do not come from far away,
the “CP” events are enlivened by diversity and unaccustomed experiences. For example, a one-day “master class” in Hamburg is of course directed at “leaders
from all professions,” but the list of participants is still
surprising. It ranges from a Sales Director at Unilever
and the Managing Director of the Elbphilharmonie to
Klaus Wermker was a Director of the Office
of Urban Development in the municipal
administration of Essen. His expertise is
greatly sought-after in Germany. Today he
works as a freelancer and is an honorary
professor at the Universität Duisburg-Essen.
At the “Common Purpose” event in Essen,
he presented a short introduction to the city.
He has participated in a number of “CP”
seminars
Michael Batz, a lighting artist,
urges the seminar participants in
Hamburg not to be afraid of the
terrible Other
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I N S P I R I N G 31
the Deputy Directors of the Hamburg elevated railway,
the Association of Islamic Communities, and the State
Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
The theme of the seminar was “The Right Timing
in Leadership.” Ian Karan, the Senator for Economic
Affairs, told the group about how he escaped bankruptcy at just the right time at the beginning of his
career as an entrepreneur. The handbiker Dorothee
Vieth told about her bold decision to engage in competitive sports after surviving a traffic accident in her
mid-40s. Esther Bejarano reported on a world in which
decisions were hardly possible. She had applied for
membership in the girl orchestra in Auschwitz as an
accordion player, even though she had never played
this instrument. She joined a transport to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in hopes that her chances
of survival would be better there. Even in extreme situations, it’s not too late to make one’s own decisions.
Bejarano’s listeners were fascinated, but not speechless; with great care, they compared her extreme experiences with situations they had lived through themselves. “Common Purpose” is not a service club. There
are no membership rolls or organized social events.
“CP” makes an impact through its programs. It’s obvious
that the contacts made in the seminars expand into networks. The seminars are financed through donations
from private individuals, foundations, and companies,
as well as participant fees. These investments in “leadership” are worthwhile for the companies and institutions that send their employees or members to the seminars. After all, individuals who develop their capacity
for leadership outside their own profession will also be
able to contribute more to their companies or organizations. That’s a clear case of “win-win-win.”
S U M M A RY
“Common Purpose” brings together leaders and
managers from a wide variety of professions.
In this way the participants receive the knowledge and
the contacts they need to implement change.
Responsible citizens get to know their city and their region
from new perspectives and cooperate across the boundaries
of their different professions, functions, and cultures.
•
•
•
The participants use the time between the
workshops to exchange telephone numbers,
e-mail addresses, and business cards
The visitors wait to participate in the “Discussion and Reflection with Julia Middleton”
at the Zollverein Mine in Essen. When Middleton arrives, she opens the proceedings which
the question, “What have you learned so far?”
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32 D I S C O V E R I N G
Awakening Kids’
Interest in Science
The German economy will soon be facing a dramatic
shortage of specialized professionals. The only
solution is to promote interest in the natural sciences
and technology among schoolchildren. Efforts
under way around the world show how this can be done
TEXT CHRISTIANE OPPERMANN
show that Evonik Industries AG employees in Japan
organize with kids between two and 12 years of age
in Tokyo’s Science Museum. The children learn how
silicon reacts with water and salt and how toothpaste
is produced. The Evonik program is part of the twoday sector-wide exhibition “Yume Kagaku-21” (Fascination of Chemistry 21), which is presented annually by the Japan Chemical Industry Association
to spark youngsters’ interest in the natural sciences,
and especially in chemistry. The exhibitors include
all of Japan’s chemicals companies and the subsidiaries of BASF, DuPont, Dow Chemical, and Evonik. Altogether, 8,000 school kids accepted the companies’
invitations to the 2010 event. The Evonik shows were
standing room only, attracting 200 young visitors.
In Nidderau, a town 9,330 kilometers to the west
in Germany, the day at the Albert Schweitzer School
is beginning with a special lesson: “Isn’t it time to begin now?” asks an eager boy. The eight year old is sitting at a set table. But it isn’t breakfast time—it’s time
for chemistry. In front of the 23 boys and girls are
trays with vinegar water, boiled eggs, baking powder, tealight candles, filter paper, and felt-tip markers.
Supervised by Wolfgang Götz, an Evonik employee,
Class 3a is going to conduct little experiments.
This isn’t the first time that Götz has stood in front
of a class of schoolchildren. For the last three years he
has been serving as one of 150 honorary sponsors of
the Evonik Young Spirit initiative and visiting elementary schools to awaken the kids’ interest in chemistry.
And that’s what he is up to this morning. When the
90 minutes are up, many of the children don’t want
to leave their experiments and are still painting black
circles on the filter paper and using drops of water to
transform them into colorful images. Their school
teacher is delighted with the successful instruction.
“It is really clearly prepared for the kids,” she says.
External speakers are very welcome at the Albert
Schweitzer School. The father of one of the schoolkids,
for example, has organized a chemistry workshop.
And Götz is also satisfied with how his work is going.
“It’s always fun to get the kids interested in chemistry,”
he says. In thank you notes posted on his website, a few
of his pupils have already revealed that they are budding young chemists.
Filling the education gap
Young Spirit is one of 800 initiatives in Germany alone
that have been founded by companies and associations
to get young people interested in careers in the natural
sciences and technical fields. Their aim is to eliminate
for the long term the threat that there will be a shortage of biologists, chemists, mathematicians, physicists,
IT specialists and engineers in the country. In August
2010 the German economy needed 39,000 more engineers than were available. Research conducted by the
Institute for the Study of Labor on behalf of the Association of German Engineers (VDI) indicates that the
deficit will even reach a total of 240,000 engineers by
2020, as Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics
and Technology has announced. The German economy lost about €3 billion of value creation in 2009. For
every 100 engineers in Germany who retire, only 90
engineering school graduates are replacing them in the
profession. Worldwide an average of 190 young engineers replace every 100 who retire. “A society loses
most of its potential engineers very early on,” says
PHOTOGRAPHY:CORBIS
“MAGIC WITH SILICA” is the title of the science
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
32_Evonik_03-10_EN 32
08.11.2010 13:24:49 Uhr
Seeing and touching
instead of rote learning.
A model of the solar
system is more interesting
than dry book learning.
Chemicals companies are
becoming more active
in the classroom
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
33_Evonik_03-10_EN 33
08.11.2010 13:24:55 Uhr
PHOTOGRAPHY: FRANK PREUSS (2), PRIVAT
The Evonik initiative Young Spirit conveys natural sciences phenomena in a playful, close-up manner. At the “kids college” in Dortmund,
Dr. Kai-Martin Krüger of the Process Technology & Engineering Service Unit shows his little learners how plastic is made from a liquid.
The Evonik initiative aims to counter the shortage of scientists and engineers by sparking an interest in research at an early age
240,000 engineers needed in Germany by 2020
former Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) CEO
Prof. Joachim Milberg, who is today a member of the
Supervisory Board of acatech (the German Academy
of Science and Engineering). “The key formative influences on later career directions occur by the time a
young person is 12 years old.”
For this age group in particular the schools don’t
have enough educators, especially teachers with additional qualifications in the natural sciences. About
150,000 teachers in Germany will retire by 2013, and
there will be no replacements for 40,000 of them. New
reform models for schools have been repeatedly developed in recent decades, but personnel planning has
been put on hold due to budget concerns.
The latest OECD report on education confirms the
spending cuts for schools and universities. According to the report, Germany’s education spending is at
4.7 percent of its gross domestic product, well under
the 6.2 percent average for all the OECD countries.
At the top of the list are Denmark and the USA, with
over seven percent. The director of the OECD office
in Berlin, Heino von Meyer, points out other results of
the education crisis: Germany is “the country whose
young people are least likely to pursue higher education,” he says. Only 43 percent of all German high
school graduates begin college or university studies,
which won’t suffice to “maintain the supply of highly
qualified people.”
And the situation will not improve soon. It will take
years to prepare young people to become teachers of
biology, chemistry, mathematics, or physics. Career
changers, retirees, university graduates, and practicing engineers are expected to fill the gaps. Already today, 45 percent of physics teachers do not have a de-
Evonik employee
Wolfgang Götz is
one of 150 honorary
sponsors of the
Evonik initiative
Young Spirit. For the
last three years
Götz has been
visiting elementary
schools and
conducting little
experiments—much
to the delight of
the kids involved
gree in teaching. Without the support of companies
and associations, it would no longer be possible to offer
instruction in the natural sciences. In 2001, the VCI—
the German Chemical Industry Association—founded
the Schools Partnership for Chemistry funding program, for example. Schools and kindergartens have
since then received more than €17 million for purchasing instruments, chemicals, and information material.
In addition, partnerships between universities and
schools are arranged, educators’ projects and continuing education for chemistry teachers are developed,
and nationwide competitions for schoolchildren such
as “Discover Chemistry,” “Chemistry—Get Involved!”
and “Research by Young People” are funded. Dr. Gerd
Romanowski, Managing Director of the Chemical Industry Fund, which allocates the education initiative
funding, explains the association’s commitment: “We
want modern, exciting chemistry instruction to be part
of everyday education in schools.”
In 2000 the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA) founded the Mathematical
and Scientific Excellence Center in Schools Association (MINT-EC). Gesamtmetall—the umbrella association of the regional employers’ associations in the German metal and electrical industry—Deutsche Telekom,
Siemens AG, and 132 schools have been members of
the association since the beginning. The association’s
aim is to establish a network of high schools that are
committed to promoting instruction in mathematics and the natural sciences to a greater extent than is
laid down in the general curricula. The school principals and teachers are supported by means of workshops and further training, and the pupils’ knowledge
in the MINT subjects will be strengthened by means
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 13:25:09 Uhr
D I S C O V E R I N G 35
214
Germany was in last place compared to the other European
countries in 2007. For every 1,000 engineers working
in Germany, there were only 35 engineering graduates
202
147
111
109
of summer schools, camps, and workshops. Schools
that would like to be accepted to the MINT-EC circle
must pass a qualifying examination. To date, 102 high
schools in 15 German states have qualified, and 14
are still in their probationary periods. The MINT-EC
education institutes also include one of the German
high schools that has been most successful in teaching
the natural sciences to young people: Heinrich Hertz
High School in Berlin. The pupils are almost always
among the prize winners at nationwide and international competitions in mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics.
Turning theory into practice
The MINT-EC schools were the focus of acclaim in October 2009, when the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in
the Federal Republic of Germany (KMK) became their
patron: “For me it is a high priority to underscore, together with German business, the importance of the
MINT instruction. In the future as well it will be necessary to implement a broad spectrum of measures to
strengthen this important part of our education system,” says Henry Tesch, KMK President and Minister for Education, Science and Culture in the state of
Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.
And that can also succeed without a big network.
In Bremen, where there is no MINT-EC presence, two
high schools even have aviation and aerospace technology in their curricula. A collaboration with the Institute
for Aerospace Technology is enabling the pupils to calculate trajectories and design aircraft wings. The initiative was started by the institute chairman, Prof. Bernd
Steckemetz, who was dismayed by his students’ lack of
73
Sp
ain
Fr
an
ce
Fi
nl
an
d
Ita
ly
Sw
ed
en
Be
lg
iu
m
90
72
64
49
43
35
UK
Hu
ng
ar
Sw
y
itz
er
l
a
nd
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et
he
rla
nd
s
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er
m
an
y
114
Cz
ec
hR
ep
.
Po
lan
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SOURCE: 2010, COLOGNE INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC RESEARCH
Young engineers in Europe
In July 2009 Germany
was about 30,000
engineers short of the
number required to fill
55,000 job openings.
The engineer shortage
has worsened by 17
percent. And the trend
continues
basic knowledge in mathematics and physics. Steckemetz insisted that the young people must be better prepared. “We want to awaken their interest in technology,” he says. The pilot project also impresses aviation
and aerospace companies such as EADS, which are offering internships to graduates of the program.
Using targeted programs to get children and teenagers interested in the natural sciences is also an important
undertaking in other countries. The chemistry show by
Evonik Degussa Japan Co., Ltd. is even being booked by
Tokyo schools. Even in Asia’s most renowned country
for technology and automation, the young people’s interest in the natural sciences and mathematics doesn’t
really take off until they experience real experiments.
Learning is combined with fun in a high school project in New York (USA). Given that kids and teenagers are
fascinated by computer games, the curriculum includes
the development of video games. The pupils write the
script and act as the director. And the results are remarkable: The kids are eager to go to school and the fascination with the games has given way to an adult way of
dealing with dramaturgy, equipment and effects—turning passive users into creative talents. You really can’t
expect more than that from a school.
S U M M A RY
The shortage of qualified professionals in the natural
sciences is endangering Germany’s economic future.
Many schools can’t afford to pay qualified teachers who
can provide fascinating instruction.
With 800 initiatives, firms and associations in Germany
are filling the gap in the classrooms and helping to get young
people interested in technology and the natural sciences.
•
•
•
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 13:25:33 Uhr
PHOTOGRAPHY: FRANCO BRANFI/WATERFRAME
A shoal of gilthead bream
swims in a net cage off
the Italian island of Ponza.
Sea bream are among
the most popular fish in
the Mediterranean
and are farmed the whole
year round
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 13:26:53 Uhr
A P P LY I N G 37
The Age of Aquaculture
The development of fish farming could make a substantial contribution toward solving the
problem of how to feed the world’s population. The challenge presented by this technique is how
to feed the fish without using maritime resources. After all, the latter are now exhausted
TEXT CHRISTOPH PECK
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 13:27:06 Uhr
38 A P P LY I N G
A SPATTER OF FEED PELLETS breaks the blue-
PHOTOGRAPHY: WOLFGANG KUNZ/BILDERBERG, LINEAIR/DAS FOTOARCHIV, STOCKFOOD (2), EVONIK INDUSTRIES
A worker on a cod farm in Leknes, Norway, replenishes a feeding system that
distributes the pellets slowly in the water
The net cages of the Bremnes Seashore salmon farm in Norway are up 50 meters
deep. This makes it possible for the fish to swim in water at different temperatures
green waters of the fiord. Instantaneously the surface
begins to boil, as salmon rise to meet the tiny crumbs
of food. Although the installation is deserted, the feed
arm continues to scatter pellets across the water. The
whole operation is controlled remotely and with great
precision. The rate at which the pellets settle, for example, is calculated so that fish deeper down are guaranteed enough to eat. And as soon as an underwater
camera positioned at the bottom of the net captures the
first feed pellet, the feeding process is halted.
The salmon farms along the Norwegian coast are
a far cry from the rural trout ponds back in Germany.
The Norwegian farms employ GPS technology and
special detectors to monitor fish activity. In the middle of the net cage, for example, there is a kind of electronic gate that records the speed and frequency with
which fish swim through. If there is a deviation from
the normal movement patterns a signal is transmitted
to the monitoring station located on the shore of the
fiord. And that is a sign for the fish farmer to motor out
to check that everything is in order.
Aquaculture is a high-tech industry—at least this
is the case on the salmon farms of Norway, Scotland,
Canada, or Chile. And it is an industry with a massive
future. Years ago, the late management guru Prof.
Peter F. Drucker predicted that aquaculture, and not
the Internet, would represent the most promising investment in the 21st century. That’s because fish is still
the most important protein source for the human race
worldwide, ahead of poultry and pork. And, with the
world’s population set to rise to nine billion by 2050,
it will remain so. As a result, demand for fish in Europe
and the U.S. will increase by around four percent. The
equivalent figure in Asia, Africa, and Latin America
will be as high as 60 percent.
A blue revolution
The global catch has been stagnating at around 80 million metric tons a year since the mid-1980s. As a result, the world’s oceans have long been unable to meet
demand. Today, many stocks are overfished or completely exhausted. The solution to the problem is aquaculture: fish farms rearing salmon, carp, tilapia, pangasius, catfish, and shrimp. What the world needs is a
blue revolution.
This trend was already evident in the 1970s, when
a UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) con-
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 13:27:17 Uhr
A P P LY I N G 39
From fish farms to the refrigerator cabinet
Fish remains the most important protein source for people, ahead of poultry and pork. And the world’s population is growing
PANGASIUS
SHRIMPS
Origin: Asia.
Increasingly reared in
aquaculture,
particularly in
Vietnam and Thailand
Origin: Tropical
waters. Around one
third of the shrimps
on the market
worldwide are farmed
and poultry industries, and awareness of it is becoming
more widespread in aquaculture—an area that is looking for ways to upgrade its sustainability credentials.
Conservationists and animal welfare activists criticize intensive fish farming, which they equate with the
use of antibiotics, the pollution of the seabed by feces,
and the overfishing of smaller species of fish. The latter practice, which is particularly prevalent in the Pacific, is used to produce fish meal. However, rearing
methods have been refined, thereby reducing both the
burden on the environment and the use of fish meal,
which is now an expensive commodity. For this reason, EWOS, a major Norwegian producer of fish feed,
has progressively cut the proportion of fish meal in its
products, which has fallen from 36 percent in 2002 to
15 percent in 2010. Instead, EWOS adds synthetic
Dr. Christoph Kobler,
product manager at
Evonik, is head of the
aquaculture project.
He is convinced
that fish will become
a more important
part of our diet
Global aquaculture production
200
Million metric tons
Projected
growth rate
180
160
140
Farmed
120
100
80
60
40
Wild
SOURCE: FAO
20
19
70
19
73
19
76
19
79
19
82
19
85
19
88
19
91
19
94
19
97
20
00
20
03
20
06
20
09
20
12
20
15
20
18
20
21
20
24
ference in Kyoto, Japan, predicted that output from
aquaculture would increase fivefold over the following 30 years. With the industry producing five million
metric tons of fish a year in 1975, that meant a projected rise to 25 million by 2005. Although the prediction seemed inflated to some people, it proved much
too conservative. In fact, the FAO reports that production was 38.8 million metric tons in 2008. It is even
forecasting that the global catch will rise to almost 200
million metric tons by 2024, 60 percent of which will
come from aquaculture. That corresponds to an annual growth rate of around eight percent.
Rearing such huge quantities of fish will require
the right kind of feed. In other words, it must contain
fat, carbohydrates, and, most important of all, protein. “That’s where we enter the picture,” says Dr.
Christoph Kobler. As head of Evonik Industries’ aquaculture project, he’s responsible for guiding the Group
into these uncharted waters. However, the production
of animal feed, particularly for chicken and pigs, is by
no means unfamiliar territory to Evonik. For the past
40 years, the Group has been manufacturing synthetic
amino acids—vital constituents of the proteins responsible for animal and human growth. For the body to
be able to produce these proteins, the relevant amino
acids must be present in the right quantities. If one is
lacking, protein synthesis halts. The remaining amino
acids are excreted unused and growth is interrupted.
Rapeseed meal, soybean meal, and fish meal are
the natural constituents of animal feed. While they all
contain the amino acids required for protein synthesis, their production is more costly and more harmful to the environment than that of synthetic amino
acids. This fact has long been recognized in the pork
Global aquaculture production has grown by eight percent annually over the last
25 years. A similar increase is projected for the next 25 years
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 13:27:36 Uhr
40 A P P LY I N G
The world’s oceans can no longer meet demand
Production from aquaculture was five million metric tons in 1975; it is projected to rise to around 200 million metric tons by 2024
TILAPIA
CARP
Origin: Nile region.
Tilapia are farmed
in 85 countries.
Europe’s largest
supplier is Taiwan
Origin: Asia. Carp
account for around
80 percent of all
farmed freshwater
fish worldwide
methionine, one of the four most important essential amino acids, to its feed.
“The customer wants to become fully independent
of marine resources,” says Kobler. And that’s where
Evonik comes in—even if Kobler and his team have
to clear up certain misapprehensions along the way.
These include concerns such as: “Will the amino acid
be washed out in the water?” or “When the fish eat the
feed, will they be able to digest and absorb the amino
acid?” The first question was quickly answered. With
fast-feeding fish such as salmon, pangasius, and tilapia,
elution is not a problem. As far as slow-feeders such
as shrimps are concerned, a research project is now
Good feed is all about getting the proportions right
Just one kilo of DL-methionine
and two kilos of BIOLYS
outweigh many times higher
amounts of conventional
feed—thanks to the addition
of amino acids
54 kg
Fish meal
36 kg
Soybean meal
SOURCE: EVONIK 2010
1 kg 2 kg
DL-met BIOLYS
investigating whether the methionine can be given a
protective coating to prevent it from being washed out
too quickly.
The second question is a little more difficult. To answer it, Kobler’s team first had to acquire some expertise in the area of fish nutrition and physiology. How,
for example, does the digestive system of salmon differ from that of carp, one of which is a carnivore and
hunter, while the other is an omnivore and bottomfeeder? And what about tilapia and pangasius? “The
difference between salmon and carp is certainly as
big as the one between a chicken and a pig,” says Kobler. But with respect to salmon, at least, Kobler and
his team have been able to persuade the customers that
methionine, lysine and threonine do their work.
Huge market potential
“But salmon only make up slightly less than six percent of the market,” Kobler explains. “The big slice
of the cake is made up by carp, tilapia, catfish, and
shrimps.” That means Asia, where there are lots of
small fish farms and extensive aquaculture. Asia also
has lots of large companies that produce feed for poultry, pigs, and fish. And Evonik already has good contacts to many of these companies. The goal now is
to persuade these producers that the products from
Evonik are not only good for pigs and poultry but can
also be added to fish feed, thereby enhancing its quality and boosting fish growth.
Success here will open up a huge market. Asia is
home to almost 90 percent of the world’s aquaculture
industry. Kobler puts the current global market potential for methionine at over 10,000 metric tons, while
Evonik believes that “a substantially larger volume will
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 16:59:25 Uhr
A P P LY I N G 41
SALMON
Origin: Atlantic
and Pacific.
The salmon is
Germany’s
favorite edible fish
S U M M A RY
The world’s oceans have long been unable to keep up with
fish consumption, although demand continues to rise.
Aquaculture could offer a solution. The industry is forecast
to grow by eight percent a year until 2024.
Synthetic amino acids make aquaculture much more
sustainable because they increase efficiency and have less
impact on the environment than conventional fish feed.
•
•
•
The Leroy fish farm in Bergen, Norway, feeds its salmon and sea trout with
pellets containing DL-methionine
PHOTOGRAPHY: WWW.TECHNOFISHER.COM, STOCKFOOD (2), CHRISTOPH KOBLER (2)
be realistic by 2018.” To gain some idea of the enormous amount of fish feed—and reared fish—that this
implies, consider the fact that the proportion of methionine in feed is just 0.1 to 0.15 percent. Put another
way, this means that a metric ton of feed contains only
one kilogram of methionine. It’s barely a pinch but big
enough to make all the difference.
Further basic data tend to confirm the wisdom of
Evonik’s strategy. For example, fish are the most efficient converters of feed into meat. Salmon produce 65 kilograms of edible meat for every 100 kilograms of feed. The comparative figures are 20 kilos
for chicken, 13 kilos for pork, and a mere 1.2 kilos for
lamb and beef. What’s more, aquaculture produces a
smaller carbon footprint: poultry and fish production
emit two kilos of CO2 per kilo of useable meat, compared to 14 kilos for beef. Efficient feeding methods
and good feed conversion also reduce the burden on
the environment.
“Basically, we’re going to be eating more fish”, says
Kobler. “And that means more aquaculture.”
In other words, the age of aquaculture has begun,
and the chances of ushering it in sustainably look pretty
good.
Fish feed is made of basic materials such as fish meal and wheat. For
convenience, it is extruded into pellets
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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42 R E C O G N I Z I N G
Weaning Chemicals off Oil?
As oil becomes scarcer and more expensive, researchers look for alternatives. At stake is not only
car transportation and heating but also the future direction of the chemicals industry
TEXT DR. CAROLINE ZÖRLEIN
$3,729
billion
total
$5.01
billion
forecast to
2015
FOR THE MODERN WORLD, oil is its very life
$1.63
billion
renewable raw
materials
Market
value
ILLUSTRATION: PICFOUR
Global sales of
chemicals based on
renewable raw
materials reached
$1.63 billion in 2008
and are forecast to rise
to $5.01 billion by
2015. The total world
market for chemicals
currently stands at
$3,729 billion
blood. Formed from oozy layers of dead plankton subjected to extreme pressures and temperatures underground over millions of years, it greases the wheels of
the global economy like no other lubricant. Without
this fossil source of fuels, the world might very well
stutter to a standstill; but with it, global warming and
all its consequences seem more than a cloud on the horizon. Alternatives are desperately needed.
The largest consumers of oil continue to be transport and power generation. In Germany, for example, road traffic, heating systems, and power plants
account for approximately 85 percent of total oil consumption. The balance, just under 15 percent, goes
to the chemicals industry, for which oil—with a share
of 72 percent—is by far the most important raw material. The products based on this precious commodity include plastics, medications, paints, coatings, and
textiles.
In other words, oil provides us with much more
than mobility and energy, since the chemicals industry
also relies on this valuable resource and must search
for alternatives. This is why companies in the sector
are stepping up their research and development efforts to devise a green chemicals industry based on
renewable raw materials, such as rapeseed, corn, or
wood. “A chemicals industry without crude oil is certainly possible in principle,” says Dr. Jörg Rothermel,
an expert on renewable raw materials at the VCI, Germany’s chemical industry association. “But a chemicals industry without carbon is an impossibility.” Carbon, the element upon which all life on earth is based,
is vital to many areas of industry, because plastics—the
main constituent of a host of everyday items including
toothbrushes, medicinal drugs, computers, and yogurt
cups—are essentially made up of long chains of carbon
compounds. The concentration of carbon in crude oil
is especially high, reaching as much as 85 to 90 percent. Yet vegetable oils and fats consist of 76 percent
carbon, and even lignocellulose—the main constituent
of wood—is 50 percent carbon.
As a result, plant-based raw materials are now playing an increasingly important role in the chemicals
industry. In fact, nature is already providing the basic chemical framework for many products. Plant fibers, for example, are woven into textiles or serve as
the base material for insulating or packaging; rapeseed and soybean oil form the basis of surfactants in
detergents; corn and potato starch are constituents of
biologically degradable materials and of adhesives and
medicinal drugs. “Biomass has become the base material of choice wherever there are technical or economic
advantages over fossil fuels,” Rothermel reports.
The proportion of renewable raw materials used
by the chemicals industry currently stands at around
13 percent. In Europe, that amounts to about nine million metric tons, of which vegetable oils and fats account for 31 percent, starch of various kinds for 35
percent, sugar for 14 percent, and cellulose and fibers
for 16 percent. Every year the German chemicals industry alone processes 2.7 million metric tons of renewable raw materials.
The right mix of raw materials
Today, with almost every company in the chemicals industry working to base more and more of its production operations on biomass, the share of renewables in
the raw materials mix is about to increase. At Evonik
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 13:32:29 Uhr
R E C O G N I Z I N G 43
Industries AG—which has long been using rapeseed
and sunflower oil, corn and wheat starch, and carbohydrates from sugar beet and sugarcane—the proportion of renewable raw materials currently stands at almost ten percent. A big application for biomass is the
production of high-grade feed additives such as amino
acids. “And now we are also producing special amino
acids from renewable raw materials for products including medical infusions,” says Dr. Thomas Haas, Vice
President Biotechnology at Evonik. “Biotechnology
plays a particularly important role in processing biomass for such applications.”
In the field of industrial biotechnology—also known
as “white” biotechnology—microorganisms such as
bacteria or fungi and special enzymes are used.
Acting as tiny chemical plants, these mits
lan
lp
croorganisms are exceptionally effia
cin
cient at breaking down plant-based
di
raw materials such as cellulose,
starch, oil, and sugar into smaller
units. They are used to produce what are known as “platform chemicals,” for example,
such as lactic acid, amino acids, and alcohols, which can
then be further processed by
the chemicals industry for the
production of plastics, medications, or fuels. Haas has a
striking phrase to describe this
process: “A smart combination of
biology with chemistry.”
ils
Here’s
how
rch
Sta
Na
tu r
al
fi
s
w
Stra
Wo
od
Evonik also uses vegetable oils in the production of surfactants, for example, and highgrade cosmetic oils at its Care Specialties Business
Line. “The ingredients and also the active substances
in creams and lotions designed to slow skin-aging can
now be manufactured using biotechnological methods,” explains Dr. Oliver Thum, Head of Biotechnology
Research at Evonik’s Consumer Specialties Business
Unit. Anti-wrinkle creams, for example, contain the
naturally occurring molecule hyaluronic acid, which
serves as a store for water in the eye and also helps to
lubricate the body’s joints.
At present, the use of vegetable oils for the manufacture of protective skin creams such as those found
in production engineering, laboratory, and hospital
environments is still too expensive. “But here, too,
manufacturers are placing an increasingly higher priority on sustainable products,” says Dr. Petra Allef,
Head of Research, Development, and Applications at
Evonik’s Skin Care Product Line. Allef is confident that
there will be a cost-effective production process for
this within a few years.
Amounts
and
consumers
Germany used 90.6
million metric tons of
renewable raw
materials in manufacturing and energy
production in 2007.
Of that total, 47%
was for chemical
building blocks, 28%
for petrochemicals,
and 18% for the
paper and pulp
industry
be
r
The biorefinery boom
PHOTOGRAPHY: ISTOCKPHOTO (7), KIEDROWSKI, R./ARCO IMAGES, PANTHERMEDIA
Cork
Sugar
o
le
M
e
Rubber
These efforts to enhance the sustainability of the
chemicals industry could also have economic benefits. According to a new analysis conducted by the
corporate consultants Frost & Sullivan, global sales of
chemicals made of renewable raw materials reached
$1.63 billion in 2008 and are forecast to rise to $5.01
billion by 2015. But in order to be able to manufacture products based to an even greater degree on renewable raw materials, the chemicals industry needs
to modify its infrastructure. “The transition to a biobased economy will change the production structures
irrevocably,” predicts Dr. Gunter Festel from consultants Festel Capital in the magazine Chemical Business. “New supply chains to deliver a different class
of raw materials will create a whole new set
of challenges for the infrastructure curVe
rently in place.”
ge
ta
Biorefineries will play a key role
b
in the greening of the chemicals
industry. It is here that biomass is
first broken down by specially
cultivated bacteria and fungi.
Major facilities of this kind—
for example pure starch and
ethanol plants—are already in
operation, turning raw materials such as corn and sugarcane into intermediate products. At present, more than
30 million metric tons of ethanol are produced annually using biotechnological processes.
Although this product is still used
primarily as fuel, it could increasingly
serve in the future as a base material for
the chemicals industry.
Biorefineries would function in a similar
manner to oil refineries. According to estimates by
the World Economic Forum, the corresponding biorefinery boom could create a market of as much as $300
billion by 2020. “But biorefineries will have to become
more flexible,” warns molecular biologist Dr. MarieLuise Lippert, consultant to the German Association of
Biotechnology Industries. “They will need to be able
to process wood and straw and to handle feedstock
plants in their entirety. That way, biorefineries will be
able to produce a whole range of basic materials for the
chemicals industry.”
To date, lignocellulose, the main constituent of
wood, has proved a difficult nut to crack. Although
bacteria and fungi do possess the enzymes required
for the job, laboratory investigations into the overall efficiency and the individual stages of the process
are still continuing. Microorganisms are also able to
accomplish the reverse trick: combining small molecules into larger chemical building blocks. In lab
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 13:32:32 Uhr
Biofuels cover
1.7 percent of
global fuel
consumption.
Researchers
see big potential
in waste from
agriculture and
forestry
PHOTOGRAPHY: LÖSEL/VISUM
Raw materials from the soil
experiments, Evonik researchers are feeding bacteria with so-called synthesis gas, a mixture of carbon
dioxide and hydrogen. In return, the microorganisms
make building blocks for acrylic glass. “The bacteria
produce what are called ‘monomers’, and these can
then be joined up by means of a chemical process to
form a polymer, in other words a plastic,” explains Dr.
Jan Pfeffer, a project manager in Research and Development at Evonik subsidiary Creavis Technologies &
Innovation.
If renewable raw materials are to play a greater role
in the chemicals industry, this will require not only increases in processing efficiency but also the allocation of extra land to grow such crops—a controversial
issue. Given a growing population and limited acreage for the cultivation of food crops, it seems legitimate to ask whether there will ever be sufficient biomass for industrial usage. Europe, for example, doesn’t
have the land that would be needed for this. And it is
already importing up to 40 million metric tons of soybean materials a year, around three-quarters of which
goes into animal feed.
In order to base its chemicals industry on renewable raw materials, Europe would have to import substantial quantities of biomass. Asia or South America
are in a better position as far as acreage is concerned.
However, as Lippert observes, “without the use of
‘green’ biotechnology, it will be difficult to produce
sufficient quantities.” This is biotechnology applied
to the development of plants that have higher yields
or are able to grow in poor soil that is unsuitable for
the cultivation of food crops. Other options here include the use of biotech methods to convert biological
waste such as straw into a raw material, for example,
Plastic
bags
without
oil
Every year, 500
billion plastic bags are
produced worldwide.
As a rule, the raw
material required is
crude oil. With
biotechnological
methods, microorganisms can be used
to produce biologically degradable
plastics from plantbased raw materials
or to produce the highly versatile polymer chitosan
from shrimp shells, or to make natural rubber from
the milky sap of dandelions.
Oil is too valuable to burn
“The chemicals industry is not in a position at this point
in time to do without crude oil as a raw material,” says
Rothermel. And while renewables are poised to play
a greater role, it is highly unlikely, as Thomas Rings,
Vice President and Head of Process Industries Practice at A.T. Kearney, explains, that “they will ever, for
technological reasons, make up more than around 20
or 25 percent at most of the raw materials mix.” However, as Rings adds, “this figure doesn’t take into account algae as a raw material, since its potential can
not yet be properly assessed.”
So far, experts see no danger of a shortfall in the
supply of oil to the chemicals industry. But when it
comes to deciding how best to use this valuable commodity, the message from analysts, industry associations, and senior company executives is best summarized by Dr. Utz Tillmann, Director General of the
VCI: “Oil is far too precious a resource simply to send
up in smoke.”
S U M M A RY
In the quest for greener chemicals, almost every company
is working to increase the use of biomass.
The transition to a bio-based economy demands new production structures and more land availability. The world
population is increasing; land under cultivation is decreasing.
Renewable raw materials still have tremendous potential.
The chemicals industry is working to cut its dependence on
oil and to use it more efficiently.
•
•
•
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 13:33:10 Uhr
R E C O G N I Z I N G 45
Plasticizers/
additives for plastics
Glycerine
Surfactants
Linoleum
Pesticides
Cosmetics/pharmaceuticals
Textile agents
Detergents
Car tires
Tubes
Conveyor belts
Hygiene articles
Other
Bio-based plastics
(e.g., polylactic acids,
polyhydroxyalkanoates,
polyamides)
Elastomers
Lubricants
Metalworking
Greases
Hydraulic oils
Chainsaw oils
Cosmetics
Pharmaceutical products
Coatings/Paints
Printing inks
Binders
Color additives
Oleochemistry
al
cin
di
Rubber
nts
pla
Ve
ge
t
Bitumen, asphalt
ab
o
le
M
e
Chemical base
materials
Wine corks
ils
Renewable raw materials already
play an important role in German
industry. The chemicals sector
alone uses around 2.7 million
metric tons a year
s
Wo
od
Floorboards
Technical textiles
Insulating materials
w
Stra
Planks
Home textiles
be
r
Starch for textiles
Beams Laths
Clothing
Na
Starch for paper
Composite materials
tu r
al
fi
rch
Sta
Biotechnology
Building materials
Flooring
Pin boards
Cork
The
Renewables
Sugar
Detergent
(enzymes)
Granulates
Composite materials
Lumber
Battens
Veneer
Vegetation mats, plant
propagation mats
Lignin
Lignin-based
plastics
Sawmill waste
Animal bedding
Agricultural
usage
Wood materials
Paper pulp
Chemical pulp
Coatings, printing inks
Cellulose derivatives
Particle board
Graphic papers
Medium-density
fiberboard
Packaging
Oriented strand
board
Toilet paper
Wood-fiber
insulation materials
Specialist papers
Thickeners, adhesives
Bio-based plastics
Regenerated cellulose
materials
Cellulose-based synthetic fibers
Production volumes within the raw materials group
Wood-polymer materials
Growth markets of
significant volume
max. 100,000 t
100,000–500,000 t
500,000–1 million t
> 1 million t
SOURCE: NOVA-INSTITUT; PHOTOGRAPHY: ISTOCKPHOTO (7), KIEDROWSKI, R./ARCO IMAGES, PANTHERMEDIA; ILLUSTRATION: PICFOUR
Construction
chemistry
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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08.11.2010 13:33:25 Uhr
PHOTOGRAPHY: TOM LEMKE, PETER KNEFFEL/DPA
46 E X P E R I E N C I N G
Andreas Gursky
His unique perspective on
the world was not born in
New York, London or Paris,
but in the Ruhr region.
Professor Gursky lives and
teaches in Düsseldorf.
Right: Visitors at the Haus
der Kunst in Munich in front
of the work “Tote Hosen”
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E X P E R I E N C I N G 47
Great Art
Prof. Andreas Gursky moved to
the Ruhr region as a child and has lived
there ever since. A portrait of the
student of Prof. Bernd and Hilla Becher,
who has become a global superstar in the
world of photography
TEXT TOBIAS HABERL
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Left: Gursky’s
“Paris-Montparnasse”
and Bernd and Hilla
Becher’s “Gasbehälter”
(Gasholders) in
Cologne’s Museum
Ludwig. Right: Hilla
and Bernd Becher;
the latter died in 2007
“He was persistent, hard-working, and very good!”
Hilla Becher remembers her student Andreas Gursky
SIX MONTHS AGO the photographer Prof. Andreas Gursky put on a show of his latest works. It consisted of seven gigantic photographs measuring 3.5
x 2.5 meters, six of the ocean and one of the Antarctic. The images looked like Google Earth snapshots or
satellite photos taken from outer space. Gursky, the
world’s most significant and expensive photographer
today, had seemingly rejected the option of a bird’s eye
view—only a view from far above would do. The photos look as though God had gazed down from Heaven,
picked up a camera, and taken a few snapshots of our
earth. How are we to evaluate such photos, which of
course must be art if they’ve been made by Gursky,
but nonetheless can be seen on dozens of monitors in
any given TV weather studio? Were they a continuation of Gursky’s photo series, which evolved from
small formats to large ones? These series depicted the
Rhineland in the 1980s and the rest of the world in the
1990s. Were they now meant to depict the universe?
Or were they simply bad photographs?
Gursky is like McDonald’s
There are critics who were immediately enthusiastic,
but there are also people who find the images shallow,
banal, and meaningless. They are the ones who say that
Gursky has become a megalomaniac. However, they
forget that Gursky—who has produced the world’s most
expensive photo (worth US$3.3 million), ironically
named “99 Cents”—is not only an internationally acclaimed artist. After all, there are many of those. Like
McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, Gursky is a brand that is
recognized all over the world. He’s a global player who
looks down at the world from high-rise hotels and airplane windows. From that standpoint, the lofty per-
spective does seem to make sense. All the same, were
these ocean images really necessary? All that blue water and here and there a thin strip of coastline? The answer is simple, as is so often the case in art. An image
is only an image, even if it has never been seen before,
even if might be unique. It doesn’t become art until it
is placed in a series with other images, compared with
earlier works, interlaced with the biography of its creator, and confronted with the artist’s teachers and role
models. Art requires a context, and those who wish to
understand Gursky’s photographs from outer space—
for which he bought satellite images and processed
them on a computer—must once again take the time to
find out where this artist comes from, how he got his
start, and who taught him and told him what it actually
means to make a photograph of something.
In 1981, when Gursky finished his studies at the
Visual Communication department of Universität-Gesamthochschule Essen, he was almost lost to the world
of art. He set out for Hamburg with a portfolio of photos in his suitcase in order to look for a job as a photographer at one of the Hamburg-based magazines. If he
had landed a job, he would be illustrating features and
reports for Stern or Geo today—but he wasn’t hired.
Instead, Gursky embarked on a second course of
study, this time at the Art Academy of Düsseldorf. One
of his teachers was Bernd Becher, the most objective,
sober, strict, conceptional photographer of the 20th
century—one could even call him the very opposite of
the typical photojournalist roaming the world with his
Leica. Gursky started attending his course in 1981.
What he experienced there and participated in was
the legendary “Becher school,” consisting of about a
dozen highly talented photographers who were sup-
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E X P E R I E N C I N G 49
On the trail of beauty
Gursky started out by making typological photo series, an approach he knew through the Bechers’ work:
hotel doormen, department store saleswomen, interiors. He found his motifs in Düsseldorf and its surroundings, as he could not afford to travel. “That wasn’t
a bad thing at all,” says Hilla Becher. “The region was
still fresh and unexplored by photographers. Instead of
postcard motifs, it had anonymous landscapes whose
beauty you could expose.” The region was so fresh,
unexplored, and pure that it wasn’t even burdened by
the cliché of being unexplored territory—unlike
In a class of their own
Top picture: Becher students pose for the camera. Their teacher
at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf was Bernd Becher, Germany’s first
professor of photography. Together with his wife, Hilla Becher,
he taught the most renowned photographers of today. From the back,
left to right: Axel Hütte, Prof. Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer,
Prof. Thomas Struth, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Laurenz Berges, Simone
Nieweg, Prof. Thomas Ruff, Prof. Elger Esser, Prof. Petra Wunderlich,
Lothar Schirmer (editor and art collector), Hilla Becher, Ursula
Schulz-Dornburg, Jörg Sasse, Beat Streuli, Dr. Isabelle Malz (curator),
Prof. Andreas Wiesand, Anne Dressen (curator), Prof. Katharina
Sieverding, Regina Wyrwoll (Secretary General of the NRW Art
Foundation), Prof. Werner Spies (art historian), Dr. Maria Müller
(curator), Klaus Mettig, Dr. Emmanuelle de l’Ecotais (curator), Prof.
Armin Zweite (curator), Dr. Fabrice Hergott (curator). Bottom picture:
Two photographers: Andreas Gursky with his father Willy Gursky,
who has published his photographic works of the last 50 years in a book
PHOTOGRAPHY: PICTURE-ALLIANCE/DPA (2), CHRISTIANE KUES, WERNER GABRIEL
ported and guided by Prof. Bernd Becher and his wife
Hilla. Almost without exception, these young photographers were set on a course that launched them into
world-renowned careers. It was a collective marked by
discussion, competition, and partnership—and an ideal
incubator for making a photographer into an artist.
Hilla Becher still lives in an old schoolhouse in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth only a few kilometers from Gursky’s studio. When asked about Gursky, she says, “I still
remember that I found his work very impressive from
the very beginning. It showed artistic distance, in the
best sense of the word.” In those days the Bechers lived
in an old mill on the outskirts of Düsseldorf. Outside
the mill they parked their VW van, in which they made
their photo tours. They lived there from 1961 to 2002
in makeshift, Spartan surroundings, with lots of books,
a few sticks of furniture, a couple of board games, a tiny
kitchen, and an old Blaupunkt radio. If anyone should
suggest in retrospect that this was a rather romantic
living arrangement, she promptly retorts, “We lived
there because the rent was affordable. It was damp and
crowded and not very inviting.” All the same, Gursky
and the others—Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Axel
Hütte, and Candida Höfer—visited the Bechers regularly. They would show the couple their work, ask for
advice, hold discussions, and leaf through their hosts’ illustrated books. For Gursky, it was a whole new world.
In his father’s photo studio he had gotten to know a
profession, but suddenly he was confronted by an attitude toward photography and life — because what the
Bechers taught and exemplified was a way of life characterized by clarity, frugality, and an absence of vanity.
What they considered important was not the creation
of a sensational individual photo but achieving a deeper
understanding of photography and merging their work
with their life. There are critics who fault Gursky for
making photographs that are so gigantic and so expensive. “That’s nonsense,” says Hilla Becher. “They’re forgetting that Gursky also started off small, with smallformat photographs. He was persistent, hard-working,
and very good, and that’s why he was successful.” It’s a
fact that back then Gursky even worked as a taxi driver
in order to make ends meet.
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50 E X P E R I E N C I N G
Gursky works
PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREAS GURSKY/VG BILD-KUNST, BONN 2010/COURTESY SPRÜTH MAGERS BERLIN LONDON
Klausenpaß: Even in his early works, Gursky focused on the relationship
between people and the world of nature. In the 1984 photograph
“Klausenpaß,” tiny people are standing in front of a gigantic mountain.
Ruhrtal: In this photograph from 1989, a man is walking under a bridge.
Even back then, Gursky was creating stages like those of the theater. At the
center of his landscapes and architecture are human beings.
Kuwait Stock Exchange: In photographs such as this one, created in
2007, Gursky uses a single image to capture a certain economic and social
situation, a generation’s experience of life, or an era of history.
the situation today. Gursky works slowly and precisely—between 1984 and 1989 he produced no more
than three dozen photographs—but his method of looking at the world takes time. A new documentary film
by Jan Schmidt-Garre deals with the creation of a single photograph: “Hamm, Bergwerk Ost” (Hamm, Eastern Mine) (2008), which shows the miners’ changing room, known as the “Waschkaue,” or pithead bath.
The film conveys the meticulousness with which Gursky explores this setting, the patience with which he
revisits and investigates it, measures angles and perspectives, and tries to discover this space for himself.
Last but not least, it shows Gursky’s fascination with
the Ruhr region and its traditions.
In his early works, Gursky focused on people enjoying their leisure, engaging in sports, walks, and cycling. He discovered how much he enjoyed zeroing in
on tiny details that might escape the eye but not the camera lens—a technique he perfected in the 1990s. He
made a series of “Sunday images,” photographs of people in their spare time. Photos such as “Ruhrtal” (Ruhr
Valley) and “Angler, Mühlheim an der Ruhr” (Fisherman, Mühlheim an der Ruhr) convey a sense of peaceful
calm. His first major solo exhibition took place in 1989
at Haus Lange in Krefeld, an elegantly simple building
designed by Mies van der Rohe that could not have been
more appropriate for a student of the Bechers. “People
are the focus of my photographs,” Gursky declared at
the time. Those who doubt this have at least not understood Gursky’s early works. In a photo such as “Klausenpaß” (Mountain pass) from 1984, which shows tiny
people in from of a gigantic mountain, the photographer is showing us people who have been fascinated by
the overwhelming force of the landscape, gotten out of
their cars and climbed a few meters up the mountain.
Then and now, Gursky has always focused on the relationship between people and their natural surroundings, people and the world, people and globalization.
The quiet punk
Hamm, Bergwerk Ost, 2008. This photograph shows the miners’ “Waschkaue,” or pithead bath. Gursky worked meticulously on this image for a year
The curator of the first major Gursky exhibition was
Dr. Julian Heyden, who is today the Artistic Director for Special Projects at the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) Art Collection. We met him in Düsseldorf,
where he was staying for a few days. Heynen is wellnetworked, speaks English, travels a lot, and has known
Gursky for 30 years. “Back then, about 30,000 people came to see that exhibition. It was not a mass audience, but it included the avant-garde, art specialists,
and gallery owners from Cologne and New York,”
he says. He too emphasizes how perfect the Ruhr region and the Düsseldorf area was for the young Gursky: “This region had been destroyed and rebuilt. It
was faceless, and a good photographer could derive
symbolic images from local details.” In the early 1980s
Gursky moved into an empty transformer station in the
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Andreas Gursky and
his team preparing to
create the photograph “Hamm,
Bergwerk Ost.” He
digitized his analog
images and
processed them on a
computer
“It was damp and crowded and not very inviting!”
Hilla Becher on the beginnings of the Becher School
Hansaallee in Düsseldorf, where his older colleagues
Axel Hütte and Thomas Ruff were already living. Later
on they were joined by another Becher student, Laurenz Berges. Here they set up a color laboratory, a place
where their work, art, and life merged. All four of them
still live there today, 25 years later. During the day they
worked, and in the evenings they talked in a local pub.
They avoided the legendary artists’ hangout “Ratinger
Hof” in the old part of town, where the German punk
scene was being born, where “ZK,” the predecessor of
the cult band “Die Toten Hosen” gave its first legendary concert, where Blinky Palermo and Joseph Beuys
would drink their beers, and where the scene would
hang out. Instead, they preferred small out-of-the-way
pubs like “The Ritter” in Kaiserswerth. Says Laurenz
Berges, “The pub was a very modest place. It was not a
glamorous venue like the ‘Grill Royal’ in Berlin today.
It was just a pub with a lot of smoke, a couple of tables,
a couple of card players, and that was it.”
PHOTOGRAPHY: SIEGFRIED SCHWESIG, RAG
The Gursky class
The big thing in those days was punk and rebellion,
loud music and attracting public attention—the youth
culture freshly imported from England. And yet the
next avant-garde was already sitting in the nondescript
old pubs only a few hundred meters away and creating
its own image, which was completely different from
punk: inconspicuous, and normal. That’s the attitude
they had learned from the Bechers and made their own:
The work, the thought, the idea, the image has to be
special—not the artist. “These young photographers
deliberately set themselves apart from the punk movement,” says Julian Heynen. Andreas Gursky was also
politically left-wing. After completing his civil service
and before he entered photography school, he had even
considered becoming a social worker, but he did not
put his views on show like a hollow monstrance. This
desire to work at the edges rather than in the center,
to live not where things are happening but where one
can work in peace, has paid off. The lives of many former Becher students still focus on Düsseldorf rather
than Berlin, London, New York or Paris. They live and
work a few hundred meters from the art academy that
has made them the artists they are today.
The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, or Düsseldorf
Art Academy, founded by the Elector Carl Theodor in
1773, is a gigantic building with high ceilings. Gursky
has been teaching here since the summer semester of
2010. A sign on a door on the second floor says “The
Gursky Class.” Other doors display other great names
from the world of contemporary art, such as Prof. Rosemarie Trockel and Prof. Peter Doig. Hip-hop music
spills out of an open door, there’s a smell of paint in the
hallways and paint stains on the floors, and the place is
full of paintings, initial attempts, and early works. Some
30 years ago Gursky himself was a student here, working in the attic on the building’s fourth floor. We ask the
secretary if we could listen in on one of Gursky’s classes
when he talks with the students about their work. We
receive a polite refusal: “Professor Gursky would prefer to work with his students in peace. He hardly knows
them yet at this point.” Even an attempt to talk to one of
Gursky’s students turns out to be difficult. The classroom door is locked, and a note wedged between the
door and the door frame is removed 30 minutes later
and lands in the wastebasket. The Gursky class seems
to need peace and quiet, so we decide to grant it. In the
end, this could benefit all of us.
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52 L I V I N G
Light and Shadow
TOM SCHIMMECK on a new examination of
an old debate. A spectacular experiment
shows just how right Goethe was with
his Theory of Colors
ILLUSTRATION PETER PICHLER
“THE COLORS are acts of light: its active
and passive modifications,” wrote Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe in the Preface to his
Theory of Colors, 200 years ago. Published
in 1810, this most poetic of scientific investigations grapples with the optics of Sir Isaac
Newton. It was Newton who, almost 150
years previously, had drilled a hole through
the shutters to his chamber and refracted a
beam of sunlight with a glass prism, thus casting on the wall opposite a splotch of multicolored light, blue at one side, red at the other,
and green in the middle. This was Newton’s
spectrum: the birth of a theory of light.
To a polymath like Goethe, the colorful
light show produced by Newton the physicist
seemed too simple. “Colors and light, it is true,
stand in the most intimate relation to each
other,” he conceded, “but we should think of
both as belonging to nature as a whole, for it
is nature as a whole which manifests itself by
their means in an especial manner to the sense
of sight.” Goethe was looking for the larger
picture, for the reciprocity of light and darkness, the shadow behind the light. And in so
doing, he kindled a dispute that would endure
throughout the 19th century.
And today? “To physics, light ultimately remains a mystery,” says the physicist
Matthias Rang. Although Newton’s theory is
correct, and no experiment can disprove it, it
still carries a blemish. “And it’s a major one.”
Rang, 37 years old, has long taken an interest in optics, dating from the time of his stud-
ies at Berlin’s Humboldt University. Today, he
works near Basle in Switzerland, at the Research Institute of the Goetheanum, which
devotes itself to “fostering the communion
with sensory experience.”
This September, Rang and the physicist
Prof. Johannes Grebe-Ellis constructed a socalled experimentum lucis at the Humboldt
University. Consisting of a sophisticated assembly of light guides, lenses, mirrors, prisms,
and a powerful light source, this inverts Newton’s classic experiment, resolving not a light
beam into its spectral colors but rather a dark
beam—in other words, a ray of shadow.
When the latter is made to pass through a second prism, cyan, magenta, and yellow remain
as the fundamental colors. This, the researchers say, empirically demonstrates the “monochromaticity” postulated by Goethe.
For Newton’s experiment, all you need
is a slit that has a variable aperture. You then
send the refracted beams into darkness. A
three-dimensional dark beam, by contrast,
demands a kind of “light room” and a ridge
of variable thickness—something that is difficult to achieve mechanically. Ultimately,
what is needed is precisely the element that
is absorbed by blackening in the normal
experiment.
“I wracked my brains,” says Rang. “But the
solution was staring right at me. It’s part of
every experiment of this type but normally
never gets used.” The trick, as Rang explains,
was to look at the slit from the other side and
apply a mirror coating to the jaws of the slit
diaphragm. This mirrored slit diaphragm has
two aspects: The first shows what comes
through the slit; the second asks what’s reflected. There is no contradiction here. Both
spectra arise on the same basis.
So who’s right, Newton or Goethe?
“Newtonian optics are ingenious and correct,”
says Rang. Yet they are not contradicted by
Goethe’s thesis that light and dark are equally
important in the creation of color. As Rang
explains, the achievement of the experimentum lucis is to show that Goethe “intuited
something and argued for it well.” However,
there’s “no problem” explaining Goethe’s
contribution to the experiment in Newtonian
terms. In other words, we have a synthesis of
Newton and Goethe? “Exactly,” says Rang.
“We’ve reloaded Goethe with Newtonian
optics. Or, to put it another way, we’ve widened Newton’s optics with Goethe’s notion
of complementarity.”
Viewing the experiment is one of those
genuine moments of enlightenment. You recognize immediately that our common understanding of light and shadow is based on a
one-sided conception of light as active and
darkness as passive. “And thus as we descend
the scale of being,” Goethe wrote, “Nature
speaks to other senses—to known, misunderstood, and unknown senses: so speaks she
with herself and to us in a thousand modes. To
the attentive observer she is nowhere dead
nor silent.”
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Evonik Global
A journey around the world to international Evonik locations
USA
China
PHOTOGRAPHY: ANTHONY BRADSHAW/GETTY IMAGES, PICTURE-ALLIANCE/DPA
In Portland (Oregon),
Evonik is becoming
a key producer in the
fast growing semiconductor industry and
thus consolidating its
position in chip
manufacturing
Saudi Arabia
Together with local
partners, Evonik is
planning a joint
venture to produce
superabsorbers
in the world’s largest
industrial park
India
To serve the growing
automotive market,
Evonik and its
subsidiary INSILCO
are producing silicic
acid for the tire
industry
Evonik is supplying
the market directly
with medical active
ingredients from
two new plants in
Shanghai and Nanning
Japan
Next year, Evonik will
supply the booming
electronics industry
from a new integrated
production facility
for monosilane. It’s
another piece in the
Asia strategy jigsaw
Singapore
Evonik finds itself
in the best of company
on the artificial island
of Jurong. Almost 100
chemical companies
have set up operations
there
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54 G L O B A L
India’s Economy Is Rolling
I N D I A The growing middle class on the subcontinent is demanding safe and efficient mobility.
Tires made with silicic acid at a plant in the northern city of Gajraula are helping to deliver it
n excited crowd waited with anticipation for the arrival of the special guest
star: The white Light Weight Design (LWD)
Lotus race car from Evonik Industries AG
was a major highlight at the Vehicle Dynamics Workshop in the southern Indian city of
Madras, which was organized by the Indian
tire manufacturer Apollo for the second
time in 2010. Automakers and suppliers
from all over the world attended the workshop to experience first-hand the latest
developments from the automotive and tire
sectors. Apollo also held the event to showcase India, although the subcontinent has
long since attracted the interest of the auto
industry: The number of exhibitors at Auto
Expo India has doubled over the last ten
years, for example, and some 1.2 million
visitors attended the most recent show. India’s economy is on a huge roll, so to speak,
as the expanding middle class is trading
in its bicycles for mopeds and, increasingly,
cars as well. It wants mobility that’s both
safe and affordable. Rising incomes, reasonably priced vehicles, improved roads, and
affordable financing are helping to meet
this demand. “The middle class here consists of 300 million people—it’s a huge market,” says Vikas Rane, a marketing manager
at Evonik Industries in India. “These people
are very interested in small cars because
they’re affordable, economical, maneuverable, very reliable, and easy to maintain.”
India’s automotive sector is booming
India’s Tata Motors prices its low-end Tata
Nano model for INR 100,000, a little less
than EUR 1,600 and also less than double
the price of a moped. Although more
than 75 percent of India’s vehicles still have
only two wheels, the country is already the
world’s seventh largest automobile manufacturer and the fourth biggest vehicle
exporter in Asia. “Experts predict India will
be the world’s leading automobile nation
by around 2050, when it will have some 610
million vehicles on the road,” says Rane.
This strong domestic market is what protected India from the worst effects of the
PHOTOGRAPHY: EVONIK INDUSTRIES
A
The transition to four wheels continues at a rapid pace in India’s major cities
financial crisis. Unlike China, which focuses
heavily on exports, India’s market suffered
very few setbacks. “The demand for
cars has a direct impact on the tire market,”
Rane explains. “But people aren’t just
demanding a lot more tires. They also want
better ones in terms of technology, especially in urban areas, where populations are
increasing and state-of-the-art radial tires
are the best option. These tires are less
likely to get flats on good roads, and they
also conserve fuel.” The Indian tire industry
produced 100 million new tires in 2009.
Manufacturers are now investing in new
capacity in order to serve the growing
market. Evonik Industries is never far away
when more and better tires are being
produced. The company’s Insilco subsidiary
supplies India’s tire industry with precipitated silicic acid (silica) under the brand
name ULTRASIL, which it produces at its
factory in the northern Indian city of
Gajraula. The substance, which is used as a
filler for tire rubber, makes treads much
more durable, fuel efficient, and safer on
wet roads. While silica has been standard in
Europe for some time, it’s new in India.
“Evonik will experience greater demand for
this product in the coming years not only
due to increasing demand for new cars but
also as a result of the modernization of
commercial vehicle fleets,” says Rane. That
means plenty of work for the more than
200 workers at the Gajraula plant, who
currently produce around 15,000 tons of
silica products each year—with a further
increase in capacity scheduled for next year.
The plans are being accompanied by
promotional campaigns at the race track in
Madras, where Lotus taxi rides—on Apollo
tires, of course—are on the agenda, along
with handling tests on both wet and dry
roads. There’s also an offroad course to help
demonstrate Evonik’s tire expertise.
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES
Healthy
Ambition
I N D I A It’s not only the tire market that’s
booming in the country. Matthias Hau,
Evonik’s Regional President in India, talks
about success, demand, and growing s
elf confidence in this emerging market
PHOTOGRAPHY: EVONIK INDUSTRIES
India is booming. What are the main reasons
for this development?
There are several factors at work here.
First of all, India’s huge population alone
gives it a tremendous domestic market,
and one that’s far from satiated, as a rapidly
expanding middle class with rising
income and new patterns of consumption
is generating new growth. India’s
population also displays a tremendous
willingness to learn and better itself.
What does all of this mean for Evonik
Industries AG?
We’re doing well here with all of our
business units, especially those that serve
the automotive, petrochemical, and
pharmaceutical industries. However, our
success is also driven by feed additives
and specialties like silicic acid, lacquer
additives, intermediate chemical products,
and pharmaceutical polymers. India’s
economy most recently grew at a rate of
nine percent, and just about every sector is
booming.
So demand is not a problem. But what does
India have to offer the world?
We recognized early on that India is more
than just an interesting sales market; the
country is teeming with talent. India has a
very large number of young people, who
are educated, ambitious, and optimistic.
The country thus has every reason to be
self confident. India offers a good example
of how strong and competitive a democracy can be if it has the right demographics
and can achieve good quality at relatively
low production costs.
Matthias Hau is
Evonik’s Regional
President in India
and Managing
Director of the
Group’s Insilco Ltd
subsidiary
Evonik now manufactures superabsorber granulates in the Arabian Peninsula
Superabsorbers in the Desert
S A U D I A R A B I A The Consumer Specialties Business Unit is taking a major step
into a new market on the Arabian Peninsula
T
he world’s largest chemical industrial
park is to not to be found in Europe,
the USA, or even the booming regions of
East Asia, but instead in Saudi Arabia.
Jubail Industrial City was listed way back in
1983 in the Guinness Book of Records
as the biggest construction undertaking in
human history. The huge facility has an
area of more than 185 square kilometers.
The companies that operate there are from
a wide range of industries, the most important of which include the petrochemical, plastics, steel, and fertilizer sectors.
Evonik Industries AG is now moving in
as well.
Together with local partners—the National Industrialization Company (Tasnee)
and the Sahara Petrochemicals Company
(both leading petrochemical companies in
Saudi-Arabia)—Evonik Stockhausen
GmbH plans to establish a holding that will
manufacture superabsorbers. These
polymers can safely absorb many times
their own weight in liquid, which makes
them perfect for manufacturers of diapers,
sanitary pads, and incontinence products.
Plans call for capacity to be established for
the annual production of around 80,000
tons of the FAVOR brand superabsorber
polymers in Al Jubayl by 2013. The
current schedule calls for the holding company to be established and construction
to begin in 2011. The situation looks good,
both in terms of material supply and
sales. “We’ll be able to get the acrylic acid
we need right next door from SAMCO,
another joint venture between Tasnee and
Sahara Petrochemicals,” says Detlef Jung,
the project’s technical director. The
company produces the acid from propylene and delivers it by pipeline.”
Diapers
The region represents an enormous
growth market for the superabsorber
granulate: Altogether, more than 85 percent of production is used to manufacture
diapers, the Arabian Peninsula has
a relatively high birth rate, and modern
disposal diapers have been used there
for several decades now.
Evonik’s local production of superabsorbers marks the company’s entry into
the region, and Al Jubayl will be used as the
base to supply the diaper market of a
young population extending from North
Africa to the Middle East. A diaper requires
only ten grams of the highly absorbent
material, which means the production
capacity to be achieved by 2013 can
be used to manufacture eight billion diapers
a year. “We’re proud to be building
Evonik’s first production facility for superabsorbers in Saudi-Arabia,” says Dr.
Thomas Wildt, who is currently leading
the negotiations for Evonik on the establishment of the holding company. “The
project is a great challenge for our team,
but it’s also a lot of fun to work in this new
environment in the Middle East.”
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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PHOTOGRAPHY: EVONIK INDUSTRIES
56 G L O B A L
Evonik produces precious-metal powder catalysts that are used to make medical active agents
Growth in the Year of the Tiger
C H I N A The economic trends remain positive. Evonik Industries is growing too,
with new facilities in Shanghai and Nanning
P
assing maneuvers are exciting. They
show who really has what it takes to be
the winner. And not just in racing sports.
A bit of economic news from the summer
of 2010 revealed a passing maneuver of
perhaps far-reaching significance: China
had overtaken Japan as the world’s
second-largest economy. Just a short time
prior to that, the “Middle Kingdom”
had relieved Germany of the title of world
leader in exports. Up until about the
year 1800, today’s emerging countries of
China and India together made up approximately 50 percent of the entire global
economy. The share of global output attributable to the western world grew only
with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Now China is catching up, with
robust growth rates of around ten percent
annually. The Chinese automotive
market alone grew by 45 percent in 2009.
Deutsche Bank Research predicts that
the Chinese chemicals sector will grow by
13 percent on average until 2020, while
annual growth of less than four percent is
expected for North America and Europe.
This organic growth is also reflected in
the announcements of Evonik Industries
AG from China: Recently, for example, the
company started up a new plant in Shanghai for the production of precious-metal
powder catalysts.
These will be used to manufacture not
only vitamins and medical active agents
but also polyurethanes, which are used as
foams in automobile seat cushions or
refrigerator insulation, for example. “The
new plant enables us to supply the Chinese
market directly with locally produced
goods,” explains Dr. Wilfried Eul, Head of
Evonik’s Catalysts Business Line. The
same more or less applies to the new plant
roughly 2,000 kilometers farther south in
the major industrial city of Nanning. Here,
the Exclusive Synthesis & Amino Acid
Business Line has been producing tailormade active agents in accordance with
the important quality assurance guidelines
of the pharmaceutical industry known
as cGMP (current Good Manufacturing
Practices) since April. Long-term supply
contracts have already been signed. “The
new plant illustrates our strategy of horizontal integration,” says Dr. Hans-Josef
Ritzert, head of the Business Line. The
integration here refers to the network of
western and Asian production sites
through which Evonik offers exclusive solutions along the entire value-added chain.
Similarly, the Lubricant Additives Business
Line recently celebrated the completion
of an extension to Evonik’s RohMax Technology Center in Shanghai. The floor
area was doubled, ultra-modern equipment
was acquired, and the team of specialists
was expanded. The aim was to bring
know-how and development competence
for VISCOPLEX-series lubricant additives
even closer to the customer.
Confidence in sustainability
In the plastics business, this principle has
borne fruit. Scarcely five months after
it was started up, the MATCH integrated
production facility in Shanghai has once
more significantly increased its capacity
for methacrylic acid and moulding compounds of the PLEXIGLAS brand. And in
September, Evonik began building a new
plant for other specialties of the Evonik
Group, namely, triacetonamine (TAA)
derivatives, which help make plastics such
as those used in auto manufacturing
light-resistant. This is only the first project
of the completely new multi-user site of
Evonik in the north of China, the Liaoyang
National Aromatic and Fine Chemical
High-Tech Industrialization Zone. “China
has great strategic importance for
Evonik,” sums up Dr. Dahai Yu, Regional
President Greater China Region. “Our
investments demonstrate our confidence
in the sustainability of the growth China
has been posting.” And he should know,
considering how the Year of the Tiger
has inspired him as well: At its general
meeting, the Association of International
Chemical Manufacturers (AICM) recently
elected Yu as its new chairman.
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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G L O B A L 57
Lost in Electronics
J A PA N With strategic partnerships and new production capacity, Evonik is w its hightech business in Asia—and investing in a new integrated production facility
under three hours from Tokyo by train,
has been a center of Japanese chemicals—
especially petrochemicals—since the 1950s.
Investment despite tough laws
Following serious environmental problems
in the 1950s and 1960s, the authorities
mandated that new facilities must comply
with safety and environmental regulations
that are the strictest in Japan. However,
these did not deter Evonik Monosilane
Japan Co. Ltd. from selecting Yokkaichi as a
new production site with its partner Taiyo
Nippon Sanso Corporation (TNSC), one of
the world’s most important distributors of
industrial and special-purpose gases. The
18,000-square-meter plant is currently being built at “Chemical Combine Number 3.”
Beginning in 2011, 1,000 tonnes of monosilane will leave the plant each year. The
silicon tetrachloride by-product created
during production will be processed into
AEROSIL and sold for applications involving plastics, coatings, adhesives, and sealants. The investment costs € 150 million.
And it will be worth the price; according to
forecasts, the global market for monosilanes alone will grow by 20 percent annually on average until 2020.
PHOTOGRAPHY: PICTURE-ALLIANCE/BA-ONLINE
trolling through Tokyo’s fashionable
Shibuya district with its huge neon signs
and TV screens, you will quickly become
“lost in electronics” and realize the extent
to which that industry is still booming in
Japan. High-purity silicon is a key raw materials for the electronics sector, likewise for
the solar panel industry and for cell phone
production, where it is used in displays and
chips. The most important primary product
for all this is monosilane, and beginning in
2011, Evonik Industries AG will supply this
compound from both the plant in Rheinfelden and a new integrated production facility in the Japanese city of Yokkaichi.
The facility forms part of the Asia strategy of the Essen-based group. In the spring
of 2010, Evonik entered into a strategic
partnership with Japan’s largest manufacturer of industrial resin and printing ink,
DIC Corporation, in order to expand the
Asian business of several units. Says Ulrich
Sieler, Regional President for Japan at
Evonik, “That will move us to the cutting
edge of technological development
and help us establish ourselves in markets
of the future.” The facility in Yokkaichi
likewise has a future market in its sights.
The major port city where it is based, just
PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES
S
A night in Tokyo is enough to convince anyone that the electronics industry is booming
Production of computer semiconductor wafers
Polished Up
U S A In Oregon, Evonik Industries is
strengthening its position in the chip
industry
E
veryone has heard of Silicon Valley; the
high-tech hotbed around San Francisco
Bay has become a symbol for our information age. But what about the Silicon Forest?
Although much smaller in scale, the
forested region around Portland in the US
state of Oregon is nevertheless home to
at least 1,200 companies in the information
and communications industry. Intel alone
has almost 16,000 employees here. Since
2010, Evonik Industries AG has been in
the midst of all this activity too.The Essenbased group has acquired majority ownership of the US silica manufacturer Evonik
Silco Materials LLC, which produces the
high-purity colloidal silica used for polishing electrical semiconductors—a process
known as “chemical mechanical polishing”
(CMP). For many years, Evonik has already
been supplying the pyrogenic oxides used
for CMP under the names AEROSIL (silicon) and AEROXIDE (cerium, aluminum).
“The acquisition strengthens our position
as a key producer of special-purpose
chemicals for rapidly growing industries
like the semiconductor industry,” says
Thomas Hermann from the Inorganic Materials Business Unit. The Silicon Forest
thus has a new tree named Evonik Silco
Materials, LLC.
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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58 G L O B A L
The Switzerland of Asia
DISPATCHES
Animal feed from the island
S I N G A P O R E Evonik RohMax Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. set sail
for new shores in 2008. Evonik Industries is in good company on the
man-made island of Jurong off Singapore.
W
ho doesn’t dream of having their
own island? In Singapore they don’t
waste time fooling around—they just
build a new one. The result, Jurong Island
off the coast of Singapore, is home to a
first-class chemicals location. The idea
dates back to the 1980s, and construction
began in the 1990s. In 2009, 20 years
before the original target date, nine square
kilometers spread over seven small
islands had become a land mass measuring
roughly 32 square kilometers, which is
the size of Borkum. Nearly 100 companies
from around the globe, a who’s who
of the chemicals world, have settled here.
They have everything they need on
the high-security island: Sophisticated
networks enable plug-and-play operation,
and a system of color-coded pipelines
delivers quenching water, cooling water,
steam, raw materials, and precursor products directly into the plant. Being supplied
by the petroleum and natural gas processing industry in the immediate vicinity
saves transport and investment costs and
enhances safety. What’s more, storage
facilities for temporary storage of oil and
Jurong Island (Singapore) Evonik
Industries is planning to build a new plant
complex in Singapore for production
of the amino acid DL-methionine for use
in animal feed. The complex will
produce not only methionine, but also
all strategically important raw materials
for animal feed production. The
Evonik Executive Board has now approved
the preliminary and basic planning at
the Jurong Island location. All that remains
is approval by the supervisory organs.
gas are being built below the sea floor,
with nearly three million cubic meters of
capacity to be constructed in two phases.
The aim of the project is to enhance security of supply and create additional space.
It’s no wonder that Evonik Industries
AG feels at home on Jurong Island. In
2008, its Evonik RohMax Asia Pacific Pte.
Ltd. subsidiary opened a plant that
supplies the entire Asia-Pacific region
with high-performance additives for
lubricants. Singapore offers an excellent
economic environment, an efficient
political system, and outstanding logistics.
“That’s why Evonik companies have
been here since 1979,” says Peter
Meinshausen, President at Evonik for the
Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand region headquartered in Singapore.
“Intellectual property is protected, and the
multicultural workforce is highly qualified
and very familiar with the target markets
in Asia,” explains Meinshausen. “The
Switzerland of Asia,” as it is known here,
is very well networked in every regard
and therefore the ideal hub for Evonik for
the growth markets of Asia.
More capacity for optics
T’aichung (Taiwan) As on the Chinese
mainland, Evonik Industries AG is
also greatly expanding production of
PLEXIGLAS molding compounds in
Taiwan. The T’aichung plant, which came
on stream in 2007, currently produces
40,000 metric tons of PLEXIGLAS molding
compounds per year for light guide plates
that are installed in flat-panel displays.
In response to the strong demand, a plant
extension with an additional capacity
of 20,000 metric tons is scheduled to come
on stream in the second quarter of 2011.
Eastward with energy
Gliwice (Poland) SFW Energia, the Polish
energy subsidiary of Evonik Industries, has
bought an additional mine gas combined
heat and power plant in Upper Silesia with
a capacity of 40 megawatts thermal and
five megawatts electrical power. The plant
is fired with mine gas and coal. The Polish
coal mining industry produces roughly 0.9
billion cubic meters of mine gas per year,
20 percent of which is used at present.
PHOTOGRAPHY: AURORA PHOTOS
Catalysts to the customer
The shaft leads to an oil and gas storage facility below the sea floor at Jurong Island
Udaipur (India) The pharmaceuticals
market in India continues to heat up.
Evonik Industries has acquired the precious metal powder catalysts business of
Ravindra Heraeus Pvt. Limited. Technology and the customers will be transferred
to Evonik; the plants will remain with
the Indian company. Ravindra Heraeus will
produce and recondition catalysts on
behalf of Evonik. Evonik currently supplies
its catalysts from Germany; they will
be manufactured locally in the future.
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F I N D I N G 59
At a Glance
Here you will find all of the developments and products from Evonik Industries AG mentioned in this publication, sorted according to the topic where they are mentioned. As it strives to develop new products, Evonik takes into account the global megatrends of resource efficiency, health and nutrition, and the globalization of technologies
You can order further information
about the products from Evonik free
of charge using the attached postcard
or simply look in the Internet at www.
evonik.com
Treading Softly, page 6
The Age of Aquaculture, page 36
China: Growth in the Year of the Tiger, page 56
VESTAMID®LX9012 is a heat stabilized and light resistant polyamide 12 molding compound. The plastic
is light, abrasion-resistant, and, most of all, highly elastic—it always returns to its original shape, even after
being subjected to high stresses.
Applications: Sport shoe soles, decorative films for
sport shoe soles, skis, and snowboards.
Link: www.evonik.com/performance-polymers
DL-methionine is an essential amino acid and is used
in animal nutrition as an animal feed additive. Amino acids are vital for life, because they are the building blocks
of all proteins.
Applications: Animal feed additive
VISCOPLEX® is the name of the high-performance
lubricant additive. It covers various polymers that are
used, for instance, to increase or reduce the viscosity of
oils. Adding VISCOPLEX® helps to modify the temperature-related properties of lubricants or to prevent
damaging crystallization. In this way, it is possible not
only to reduce wear—even under extreme conditions—
but also to increase energy efficiency.
Application: Lubricants
Link: www.evonik.com/coatings-additives
The Next Generation, page 20
SAVOSIL™ is a silica glass with extremely high transparency from 200 nm to 3,000 nm. SAVOSIL™ is suitable for use in the new generation of infrared lightemitting diodes (IR LEDs) and for ultraviolet (UV)
LEDs. SAVOSIL™ is also used for the new generation
of photovoltaic concentrators of quartz glass and for
optical components for industrial applications. Precursor products are AEROSIL® and Dynasylan®
Application: Lenses for LEDs
Link: www.evonik.com/inorganic-materials
PLEXIGLAS truLED® acrylic glass for LED
technology
PLEXIGLAS® EndLighten acrylic glass specially for
edge illumination using LEDs
PLEXIMID® polymethylmethacrylimide (PMMI)
molding compound
Applications: Light conductors and lenses, for example in vehicle headlights
Biolys® supplies the essential amino acid lysine. It is
manufactured using fermentation and also contains
valuable byproducts from the fermentation process.
Evonik is the only company in the world that produces
all of the four important amino acids—DL-methionine, L-lysine, L-threonine, and L-tryptophane—for animal feed.
Application: Animal feed additive
Link: www.evonik.com/health-nutrition
Healthy Ambition, page 54
ULTRASIL® is a precipitated silica which is used as a
filler, for example, to provide long-term improvement
in the properties of rubber. Tires produced in this way
also have improved grip on wet roads. Nonetheless,
they are not only more resistant to wear, and so longerlived than conventional tires without silica; they also
exhibit reduced rolling resistance—a feature that helps
to save fuel.
Application: Tire industry
Link: www.evonik.com/inorganic-materials
Saudi Arabia: Superabsorbers in the Desert, page 55
FAVOR® is the name under which Evonik Industries
AG produces and markets superabsorbers. These superabsorbers are specially developed polymers that
can absorb many times their own volume of liquid. Unlike cellulose or cotton wool, superabsorbers do not release the absorbed liquid when subjected to pressure.
This has enabled them to establish themselves as the
standard for the production of diapers and feminine hygiene products.
Application: Hygiene products
Link: www.evonik.com/consumer-specialties
USA: Polished Up, page 57
AEROSIL® is a range of pyrogenic sicilic acids, without which many elements of our everyday lives would
simply be inconceivable. Pyrogenic oxides are found,
for example, in cosmetics articles, coatings for oceangoing yachts, and the electronics industry. AEROSIL®
is used in silicone sealing compounds and in car paints,
where it reduces moisture takeup, increases mechanical
strength, and improves the processing properties. It is
also required for production processes, for example, in
the semiconductor industry.
Applications: Cosmetics, coatings, electrical industry, and as a precursor product for diverse silane products from Evonik
AEROXIDES® are a range of pyrogenic oxides of metals such as aluminum, titanium, or cerium. They are obtained using the AEROSIL® process. In addition to improving the physical properties of coatings, they are
also used for the chemical-mechanical-polishing process associated with semiconductor materials.
Link: www.evonik.com/inorganic-materials
Evonik Magazine 2 | 2010
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ONE ROOF –
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59_Evonik_03-10_EN 59
08.11.2010 17:22:30 Uhr