Research and Development

WACKER’s research and development (R&D) activities pursue three goals:

• We contribute to our customers’ market success by searching for solutions that meet their needs.
• We optimize our methods and processes in order to lead in technology and be sustainably profitable.
• We concentrate on creating innovative products and applications for new markets and on serving highly promising fields, such as energy storage, renewable energy generation, electromobility, modern construction, and biotechnology.

WACKER’s R&D rate – research and development spending as a percentage of Group sales – reached 3.3 percent, down slightly from 2019 (3.5 percent).

In 2020, we filed 91 patent applications (2019: 99). Worldwide, our portfolio contains about 4,200 active patents, with 1,400 patent applications currently pending. We license R&D know-how from third parties to a limited extent. The results of our research partnerships with universities are usually made available to us free of charge or by the transfer of rights of use.

We invested in new laboratories and equipment, as well as in pilot facilities and pilot reactor technologies. We further automated and digitalized the work processes at our international R&D competence centers. At the Nünchritz site, we built a pilot facility for an innovative resin technology.

Investments in R&D Facilities

€ million

The development of products and production methods accounted for a large share of R&D costs. WACKER is active in many highly promising fields. The key ones range from energy recovery and storage, electronics, automotive and construction through to household products, medicine, health care, cosmetics, food and biotechnology.

Breakdown of R&D Expenditures in 2020

%

The aim of our New Solutions initiative is to develop technically and commercially superior solutions for new applications. We combine our company-wide expertise and apply it across interfaces as needed.

Some of our research projects are subsidized by government grants. In the reporting period, these projects were focused on process-specific topics, electromobility and lightweight construction.

Research and Development at Two Levels

WACKER conducts R&D at two levels: centrally at our Corporate R&D department and locally at our business divisions, where the focus is on specific applications. Corporate R&D coordinates activities on a company-wide basis and involves other departments. We use Project System Innovation (PSI) software to steer the Group’s product and process innovations by systematically evaluating customer benefit, sales potential, profitability and technology position.

Strategic Collaboration with Customers and Research Institutes

We collaborate with customers, scientific institutes and universities to achieve research successes more quickly and efficiently. These partnerships cover topics such as electricity storage, construction applications, and process simulation and development.

Back in 2006, Wacker Chemie AG joined forces with the Technical University of Munich (TUM) to establish the WACKER Institute of Silicon Chemistry, located on TUM’s Garching research campus near Munich, and has funded the institute ever since.

Research Work at WACKER

In 2020, the Group had 752 R&D staff (2019: 766), accounting for 5.3 percent of the workforce (2019: 5.2 percent). Of these, 590 were employed at R&D units in Germany and 162 abroad.

Alexander Wacker Innovation Award

The Alexander Wacker Innovation Award, a €10,000 prize bestowed since 2006, is presented at the annual WACKER Innovation Days research symposium, which was held as an online event in the reporting year. The recipients were SeungA Lee and JungEun Lee from WACKER’s Center of Excellence Electronics in Seoul, Korea, who had developed silicone resins for optical-bonding applications. Their work enables the creation of customized solutions for the burgeoning market in high-quality non-reflective displays. In optical bonding, silicone gels bond the thin cover glass with the electronic layers beneath. Non-reflectivity is achieved by filling the gap with a gel, displacing air in the process.

For the first time ever, WACKER also presented a Lifetime Achievement version of this award to recognize outstanding performance during an individual’s career. This award went to an Indian researcher, Amit Paul of Wacker Metroark Chemicals in Kolkata, who succeeded in developing water-free mixtures of silane oligomers and surfactants for treating cement compounds – the resulting hydrophobic cement gives concrete and mortar compounds water-repellent properties. One of his other achievements was to develop a silicone fluid emulsion of low particle size, which is now used in hair-care products and in high-performance additives for cosmetics, varnish formulations and crop protection.

Selected Corporate R&D Research Topics

Our corporate R&D work is focused on projects to advance sustainability, such as the circular economy and renewable resources. We are conducting research into the use of sustainable methods to continuously reduce the carbon footprint of our products and production methods. We are working to develop biodegradable polymer components made from CO₂ for use in silicone products and for vinyl acetate-ethylene (VAE) copolymers. In these areas, Corporate R&D is collaborating very closely with WACKER SILICONES and WACKER POLYMERS. To enhance the efficiency of our research, we also participate in publicly funded projects, such as the Kopernikus project P2X. As part of this project, we are investigating technologies to convert electricity from renewable sources into other forms of energy, such as chemicals and synthetic building blocks.

One focus of our basic research is the chemistry of low-valence silicon and germanium for use in industrial applications (such as catalysis and synthesis). Here we are working closely with the WACKER Institute of Silicon Chemistry at the TUM.

The catalysts required for crosslinking silicones contain precious metals like platinum. These not only make the manufacturing process expensive, but also remain present in the silicone. In the reporting year, researchers at the WACKER Institute of Silicon Chemistry and at the WACKER Group successfully cured silicone rubber compounds without resorting to precious-metal catalysts. Rather than working with the standard crosslinkers, they instead used silicone building blocks containing silirane units. The silicone elastomers produced in this way display exceptional purity and contain neither volatile substances nor traces of precious metals.

International partners are testing our highly innovative silicon-based anode materials for suitability in such applications as consumer electronics and batteries to propel electric vehicles. In collaboration with researchers at our British associate Nexeon Ltd., we are stepping up work on silicon-based materials for high-performance batteries.

One focus of our research focus is on biotechnology processes and bioengineered products. Our third-generation ESETEC^® strains have enabled us, for the first time, to selectively trigger the release of correctly folded pharmaceutical proteins from a bacterial cell. We are developing just such a process for the production of nucleic acids – an important class of biopharmaceuticals. We are using our biotechnological production platforms to develop new manufacturing processes for functional additives to supply the fast-growing market for alternative, non-animal food proteins. Our modern systems biology has made possible the sustainable, cost-effective manufacture of the amino acid L-cysteine. Taking that as our basis, we are working with partners to develop fermentation methods to make naturally occurring compounds containing sulfur for use as food and food additives.

Selected Divisional Research Projects

Sustainability in general and biodegradability in particular continue to grow in importance. Our researchers at Burghausen are working on silicone systems that feature materials or organic components that are biodegradable. At the Shanghai technical center, WACKER SILICONES is researching thermal interface materials, especially those for the electronics industry. During the reporting year, one point of focus at the Burghausen technical center was on fiber composites for thermally stable refractory components. Made from carbon or glass fibers and silicone resins, these are used in lightweight construction. WACKER SILICONES developed printable elastic electrode materials for sensor applications. Our resin-filled, optically clear silicone systems for optical bonding enhance the functionality of display screens.

We are continuing our research into UV-activated silicones, whose use is more energy-efficient than thermal curing. At the research site in Ann Arbor, Michigan (USA), we are working on silicone systems for the selective release of active ingredients in wound care. We are using molecule simulations and big-data analyses to digitalize our research activities. We employ innovation methods like Design Thinking in inter-disciplinary High Innovation ImpacT (“HIT”) teams to assess whether our development projects can be implemented and marketed. In the reporting year, the HIT teams concentrated on hygiene and the pandemic.

At WACKER POLYMERS, research remains centered on sustainable functional polymer binders for use in consumer goods and the construction industry. We are continuously improving products that are free of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and that enable the use of sustainable formulation components in a wide variety of materials. A particular focus is on renewable raw materials and functional polymer additives for manufacturing biodegradable materials. In the reporting period, we launched functionalized polymer dispersions, dispersible polymer powders and polymer resins, which our customers use to manufacture enhanced dispersion paints and high-performance composite materials. We introduced sustainable binders for adhesives and for cementitious building materials.

We are supporting the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in building up an innovation platform for sustainable construction. Called “ChangeLab! WACKER/KIT Innovation Platform for Pioneering Sustainable Construction,” this joint project is aimed both at KIT students and at architects, engineers and construction experts. We want to forge stronger ties between research work and the construction sector’s supply-chain stages by fostering the exchange of ideas and conceptual approaches in the fields of materials development and sustainable construction.

At WACKER BIOSOLUTIONS, research remains geared to strengthening the division’s expertise in biotechnology and microbiology. Once the Covid-19 vaccine candidate CVnCoV developed by biopharmaceutical company CureVac N.V. has been approved, we will manufacture it at our Amsterdam site in line with GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice). We are continuously updating and improving our fermentation processes for the manufacture of high-quality biobased and natural ingredients for food and dietary supplements. The ESETEC^® microbial production platform, which we are constantly evolving, allows our pharmaceutical customers to manufacture active proteins that are not easily accessible. In the reporting period, we developed manufacturing processes for live bacteria that our customers use as pharmaceutical actives. We are developing applications for our versatile cyclodextrins in the food, agriculture and pharmaceutical industries.

In the field of solar modules, huge technological progress is being made at every stage of the supply chain, and this trend is reflected in continually rising cell efficiencies. The highest cell efficiencies are attainable only with the kind of hyperpure polycrystalline silicon that WACKER POLYSILICON produces. Reference studies such as the International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaics (ITRPV) show efficiencies that now exceed 22 percent for monocrystalline solar cells produced with PERC (passivated emitter rear cell) technology. Efficiency is a measure of how much of the radiant energy absorbed by a solar cell is transformed into electricity. High-efficiency monocrystalline cells (such as heterojunction or interdigitated back contact solar cells) achieve efficiencies of 23–25 percent. High-performance segments like these require WACKER-quality polysilicon. In the reporting year, we joined the Ultra Low-Carbon Solar Alliance (ULCSA). The international members of this US-based organization are committed to the deployment of photovoltaic components with a low carbon footprint.