InterviewInnovation the future for polymers

29 October 2007 15:26  [Source: ICIS news]

By Lucy Craymer

 

LONDON (ICIS news)--The plastics industry needs to continue to innovate, find solutions and produce new products, Evonik-Degussa management board member Dr Manfred Spindler said on Monday.

 

Spindler said the industry faced “positive challenges” rather than problems and it was important to develop not just classical polymer uses but also to innovate within the nanotechnology, biotechnology and electronic chemical sectors to find new uses for polymers.

 

Evonik has just set up a "Science to Business Centre" to study classical uses as well as their role in other sectors, Spindler said.

 

The future of plastics made from renewable resources, such as plant material, was still uncertain, he added.

 

“There is a lot of work still to be done,” he said. “Whether it will be successful will depend on the economy and the economic feasibility.”

 

But that does not mean that the polymer and plastics industry is not doing its bit to reduce carbon emissions.

 

“Plastics in general can make a significant contribution to solve the energy and CO2 problem,” he said by telephone from the K Fair in Dusseldorf.

 

Polymers can be used in homes as insulation, which decreases energy needed to heat houses, and also in the automotive industry rather than steel and metals, to make vehicles lighter and more fuel efficient to run, Spindler said.

 

The automotive industry is one of the industries pulling the German company towards China.

 

The high performance polymers industry in China is growing at 8% compared with the European market, which is growing at around 3 to 4%, he said.

 

At a press conference last week Spindler said the company were hoping to increase sales by 20% and a large part of these increased sales would come from China.

 

“China is a developing growth market,” he said. “We are following out customers.”

 

He said Evonik supplied the coatings, automotive and electronics industries and as companies who produced these opened manufacturing plants in China, Evonik followed in order to supply them.

 

But with the European market still in growth, Spindler said, there were no plans to reduce production here.

By: Lucy Craymer
+44 20 8652 3214

< previous article(ICIS Chemical Business podcast November 2, 2009)

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