Advanced Materials in Europe
A case for action
Industrial Technologies 2012
June 20th Aarhus (DK)
Dr Marc Van Sande
Executive Vice-President Energy Materials
Umicore
Introduction to Umicore group
 We are a global materials technology company
 Our mission is to make “materials for a better life”
 The majority of our growth comes from clean technologies, i.e. technologies
specifically designed to optimize the use of natural resources and reduce
environmental impact
 We are listed on NYSE / Euronext Brussels with a market capitalization of some €
4.5 billion
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Umicore’s business approach
 We transform metals into hi-tech
materials
Application
know-how
 We use application know-how to
create tailor-made solutions in close
collaboration with our customers
 We close the loop and secure
supply by recycling production
scrap and end-of-life materials
Metals
Chemistry
material
Material science
solutions
Metallurgy
Material
solutions
 We aim to minimize our environmental
impact and be the best employer and
neighbour
Industrial Technologies 2012
Recycling
3
Umicore’s development fits with megatrends
Electrification
of the automobile
We are a leading producer of key materials for
rechargeable batteries for laptops, mobile phones
as well as electrified vehicles
Resource
scarcity
We are the largest recycler of precious metals; we
are able to recycle more than 20 different metals
More stringent
emission control
We provide catalysts for 1 out of 3 cars in the
world as well as for trucks & non-road vehicles
Renewable
energy
We supply key innovative materials for highefficiency solar cells and other photovoltaic
applications
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Umicore in figures
5%
Financials
Geographic spread of sales (2011)
17%
2%
7%
22%
8%
63%
4%
56%
16%
Europe
North America
South America
Asia Pacific
Africa
Europe
North America
South America
Asia Pacific
Africa
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80% of Umicore’s R&D (*) investment is in the
clean tech domain
recycling
emission
control
photovoltaics
rechargeable
batteries
fuel
cells
Innovative technologies specifically designed to optimize the use of natural
resources and to reduce environmental impact
(*) 7 % of revenues
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Efficient production and use of energy will
further boost demand for technology metals
Photovoltaic (solar cells)
Germanium
Gallium
Selenium
Indium
Tellurium
Silver
…
Light Emitting Diodes (LED)
Gallium
Indium
Germanium
Silver
…
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Electric vehicles & batteries
Lithium
Cobalt
Nickel
Rare Earth Elements
Copper
…
Fuel Cells
Platinum
Iridium
Cobalt
…
7
Criticality for EU
The EU Raw Materials Initiative
Materials for which a threat to supply could involve harm to the national
economy, and for which the risk is higher than for most other raw materials in
the coming 10 years
Critical materials (EU):
Be, Co, Ga, Ge, In, Mg,
Nb, PGM, REE, Sb, Ta,
W, fluorspar, graphite
Source: Critical Raw Materials for the EU – European Commission Enterprise & Industry, July 2010
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Resource efficiency needed
to deal with scarcity of technology metals
Application
know-how
Metals
Chemistry
material
Material science
solutions
Metallurgy
Material
solutions
Recycling
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Advanced materials are strategic to Europe to
address competitiveness & societal challenges
Advanced materials is a key enabling technology (KET) for EU
 Contributing to economic growth & employment in EU through innovative products
 Strengthening & dynamizing existing European value chains (often at their basis)
 Creating new jobs and competitiveness by enabling follow-through applications
 Enabling development of products & solutions to address societal challenges
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EU is facing growing global competition
in field of advanced materials
 Difficult to match investment project
incentives available in competing
regions
 Other regions strongly focus on
strategic manufacturing capacities to
fight off competition
 EU’s competitors focus on turning
basic science into advanced
products & processes
 EU does the basic research, others commercialize
 Asia is moving up traditionally EU value chains due to fast catch up in innovation
 EU faces challenges in access to critical raw materials
(needs for recycling & substitution)
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EU needs to reinforce and develop
its assets in order to compete
 EU has considerable assets in global
advanced materials competition
 EU features leading research &
technology organizations and industrial
leadership in several application sectors
 EU is still strong in global race for
knowledge creation and patents (2nd)
 The disconnect between R&D
and innovation (manufacturing and
commercialization) is well present
Global patent and manufacturing
shares for Li-ion batteries
EU must rebalance resources & objectives to retain critical capability & capacity
EU must reinforce & rapidly develop strategic sectors in order to compete
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Competitiveness of advanced materials
will benefit from more integration at EU level
 “Valley of death” between knowledge generation and commercialization
 Leading to relocation of manufacturing and R&D, disruption of value chains,
impact on sustainability of EU strategic sectors
Crossing “valley of death” in EU requires 3 pillars
 Technological facilities to transform
science into proprietary competitive
technologies
 Pilots lines to demonstrate
relevance of technologies into
delivering competitive products
 Competitive manufacturing to
create and maintain globally
competitive industries
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Bridging the “valley of death” will require
EU strong attention to various areas
 Make “advanced materials” one of EU technological priorities in Horizon 2020
 Build 3 strong pillars of the innovation chain (public & private investments)
 Rebalance RDI funding towards innovation activities
(technological research & product development incl. pilot lines, demonstrators)
 Define & implement a strategic industry-driven & coordinated approach at EU level
 Combine funding mechanisms (Industry, EU, MS) & establish appropriate rules
to implement funding programmes
 Develop globally competitive IP policies to ensure ownership and exploitation of IP
 Build, strengthen and retain skills on “advanced materials” at EU level
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For Horizon 2020, a PPP on advanced energy
materials is being proposed to EU
 In order to implement the SET plan (Strategic Energy Technology) materials roadmap,
30 organizations (15 leading materials companies) from 10 different EU countries
came together to found EMIRI association
 EMIRI (Energy Materials Industrial Research Initiative) will provide guidance, focus,
direction and commitment to achieve commercially successful development of value
added energy materials for energy applications
 EMIRI will enable actors from
public & private sectors to work
more effectively at EU scale with
resources beyond critical mass to
reach excellence in research &
innovation on energy materials
VAM: Value added materials
EERA: European Energy Research Alliance
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Take-aways
 Advanced materials are strategic to Europe to address competitiveness &
societal challenges
 But EU is facing growing global competition in that technology field
 And needs to reinforce and develop its assets in order to compete
 Competitiveness of advanced materials will benefit from more integration
at EU level and strong EU attention to various areas to bridge
the “valley of death”
 Advanced materials industry is moving and proactive with the
proposal to EU of a PPP on advanced energy materials
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