Evonik: Construction begins on specialty chemical facility for electronic chips

 Evonik Industries has begun building a second hexachlorodisilane (HCDS) production facility in Rheinfelden, a city in Germany’s Baden region. Production is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2012. Hexachlorodisilane, a raw material containing silicon, is used by the semiconductor industry to manufacture inexpensively and efficiently, among other things, memory chips with extremely high storage densities. Known as “flash memory,” these chips can be found in devices such as smart phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, or USB sticks. Solid state drives consisting of flash memory chips instead of the standard hard drives are also increasingly used in computers.

“By building this new production facility, we’re striving to further bolster our already strong position as a provider of key raw materials for the electronics industry,” comments Dr. Thomas Haeberle, Evonik’s Executive Board member with responsibility for the segment Resource Efficiency. Evonik markets hexachlorodisilane under the Siridion® HCDS brand. “We believe that hexachlorodisilane has promising market prospects and are planning to supply it in particular to Asia’s semiconductor industry,” adds Thomas Hermann, Head of the Inorganic Materials Business Unit.

Production methods for silicon compounds are one of Evonik’s most important technology platforms as a specialty chemicals producer. The company itself developed the hexachlorodisilane production process and successfully implemented it in Rheinfelden in September 2010 as the first plant put into operation. The second, new production facility is much larger and has a capacity of several tens of thousands of kilograms.

 

Evonik has reduced its specific energy-related greenhouse gas emissions by sixteen percent compared to 2004

Evonik Industries has significantly improved its CO2 efficiency. The Group has been able to reduce its specific energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in chemical production by sixteen percent; compared to the previous year, the improvement in 2010 was a full three percent. This is highlighted in the company’s 2010 Corporate Responsibility Report, which was recently presented in Brussels. This success means that Evonik has moved another step closer to its self-imposed goal of reducing the specific energy-related greenhouse gases of its chemical activities to twenty percent below the level of 2004 by 2014.

60 percent of CO2 emissions in 2010 were energy-related and 40 percent related to chemical processes. Absolute emissions of greenhouse gases increased to 9.14 million metric tons CO2 equivalents in 2010, a rise of 11 percent over the previous year (2009: 8.23). At the same time, specific emissions, i.e. emissions relative to output, declined by 3 percent. Accordingly, Evonik has successfully detached its production growth from rising emissions. “Our significantly increased energy efficiency is making an important contribution to climate protection" says Klaus Engel, the Chairman of the Evonik Executive Board.

With the global economy regaining momentum, the Group returned to operating its chemical production facilities at full capacity in 2010, in many cases with optimized efficiency. A number of efficiency enhancement measures contributed to the reduction of specific greenhouse gas emissions.  These included the start-up of a new cogeneration power plant in Antwerp (Belgium) and a more efficient installation for thermal incineration of exhaust gases from the production of the feed additive methionine. In addition, Evonik initiated selective energy-saving programs at its site in Rheinfelden (Germany). During the 2010 financial year, Evonik invested a total of 36 million Euro in environmental protection for its chemical business activities.

“We want to be successful as a supplier of competitive products and technologies that also make a contribution to sustainability. At the same time, we want to be a responsible, reliable and fair partner for our customers, employees and society and meet the demands made by our shareholders,” noted CEO Klaus Engel.

Evonik invested some €338 million in research and development in 2010. The Group pursued about 500 different projects, of which approximately 100 focused on resource efficiency.

The Corporate Responsibility (CR) efforts of Evonik provide answers for challenges of the future, such as resource efficiency. Says Christine Anders, Head of CR at Evonik: “Corporate Responsibility is an integral part of our business and we plan to keep fine-tuning our CR strategy in 2011.” With its three dimensions of Business, Employees, and Processes, the CR strategy is a fixed component of the corporate strategy, providing support and new impulses.  In 2010, the Group identified important sustainability topics as part of so-called materiality analyses and intensified its dialog with stakeholders.

The Evonik Corporate Responsibility Report 2010 for the first time met the requirements for the highest application level A+ of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). GRI is the internationally recognized standard for comprehensive sustainability reporting and confirmed the A+ reporting level for Evonik. Large parts of the report underwent a business audit by an auditing firm.

 

Evonik starts up new monosilane plant in Japan

 Evonik Industries and its partner Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation (TNSC) officially started up the new integrated production facility for monosilane and AEROSIL® in Yokkaichi, 400 kilometers south of Tokyo (Japan). Evonik has thus realized a future-oriented project to serve the growing photovoltaic and electronic markets. The project volume was around €150 million and the facility was the company’s largest single project in 2010. Evonik has a long-term agreement to supply monosilane to TNSC. Monosilane is used in the production of thin film solar cells, flat-screen displays and semiconductors for the electronics industry. Applications for AEROSIL® include processing into plastics, colorants and coatings.

At the opening ceremony in Yokkaichi, Klaus Engel, Chairman of Evonik's Executive Board, commented: “This substantial investment in Japan expands our significant market and technology position in the future-oriented solar energy market. It also makes a further important contribution to the global resource efficiency megatrend.”

The process used to produce monosilane at this new plant was developed by Evonik, which already operates a facility using this technology in Rheinfelden (Germany). The new plant in Yokkaichi will serve the Asian market with electronic-grade monosilane.