Growth through innovation

To develop new generation materials and design ever more efficient processes in order to contribute to sustainable development, to improve products and develop innovative applications in collaboration with customers: Arkema’s R&D expertise is a key element of its growth strategy.

Looking to the chemistry of the future
Without doubt R&D represents one of Arkema’s best competitive assets. It benefits from a budget close to 3 % of its sales, the skills of its 1,400 researchers, and a worldwide presence through its 6 research centers in France, the United States and Japan. This commitment to innovation enables Arkema to look to the future, by tailoring its investments to high added value activities, in particular Performance Products which receive almost half of these investments. In practical terms, R&D yields ground-breaking projects which genuinely open the way to new generation processes and products, and are fully in line with a sustainable development approach, in particular through a growing use of renewable raw materials and a contribution to tomorrow’s energy solutions. This is particularly true of the use of technical polymers in the manufacture of photovoltaic cells or fuel cells, nanostructured materials and their applications in cutting-edge technologies, the valorization bio-resources, and bitumen additives.

Innovative materials, designed for performance and sustainable development

 

• New energies and energy saving
  Arkema, a player of the photovoltaic sector
  Arkema’s contribution: to protect the silicon and the electrical circuits, and to optimize the yield of photovoltaic cells.
• Arkema’s Evatane® technical polymers, a range of ethylene vinyl acetate resins with a high vinyl acetate content, ensure the adhesion and effective protection of the silicon and the electrical circuits. Crosslinked with Luperox® organic peroxides, they feature excellent transparency and help maintain over time the performance of the photovoltaic cell.
• Arkema’s Kynar® PVDF, used for the manufacture of the film serving as the cells’ backsheet, combines a number of characteristics that are key to the longevity and the yield of photovoltaic cells: ease of processing, resistance to moisture and temperature variations, and stability of the white color which helps reflect the light toward the silicon.
  Fluorinated technical polymers for fuel cells
  Arkema’s King of Prussia Research Center in the United States is working on developing fluorinated polymer membranes in partnership with other manufacturers with the aim of producing fuel cells that will supply the clean and efficient fuel for tomorrow’s transportation. This research program has received a three-year grant from the US Department of Energy.
  Intelligent glass combining comfort and energy savings
  Arkema develops under the tradename Certincoat® coating additives specially designed for the treatment of glass used to manufacture window glazing. These are called low-emissivity coatings, which are particularly suited to cold and temperate regions, and significantly reduce the heat flows between the inside and outside of buildings, while improving the transmission of solar energy. Both in our homes and in our offices, they help improve comfort while affording gains of the order of 30% in energy consumption for heating in winter and air-conditioning in summer.
• Nanostructured materials with outstanding performances
  Nanostrength® and Graphistrength®
• Nanostrength® is a new range of block copolymers developed from Arkema’s exclusive technology and its controlled and anionic radical polymerization chemistry. In particular they help deliver superior mechanical strength while maintaining the properties of the matrix to which they are added.
• Graphistrength® is a range of multiwall carbon nanotubes developed by Arkema. Suitably dispersed within the materials they are designed to enhance, they impart outstanding characteristics in terms of mechanical properties as well as electrical and thermal conductivity. The Graphistrengh® carbon nanotube pilot production plant at the Lacq research center, in south-western France, is helping explore the fields of application for these products, and improve the understanding of their physical, chemical and toxicological properties, with a view to producing them on an industrial scale in the future.
• Nanostrength® and Graphistrength®  have applications in a large number of markets: cutting-edge materials for the aerospace sector, sports, car manufacture, electrical and electronic components, high-performance adhesives, tires, industrial rubber, and thermoplastic elastomers.
  Supramolecular chemistry, another way of designing matter
• Very tough road bitumen
  On the strength of its expertise in bitumen additives, Arkema has developed a supramolecular polymer of vegetable origin which imparts remarkable properties to the bitumen mix used for road surfacing and so offers many benefits compared to traditional polymers: ease of application, lowering of production and application temperatures and reduction in corresponding energy consumption, and recyclability.
• Self-healing rubber
  Conventional rubber is a flexible material that can absorb significant deformation and return to its initial state without any major deformation. This elasticity is the result of macromolecular structures made up of very long molecules held together by strong bonds. Supramolecular chemistry helps manufacture rubber from small molecules assembled into a network by weak bonds, these molecules being derived from fatty acids of vegetable origin extracted from pine, sunflower or rapeseed. This supramolecular rubber has the ability to self-repair spontaneously time and again, with no thermal or mechanical stress required, and every time recovers its elastic deformation ability.

Renewable raw materials at the heart of tomorrow’s chemistry

 

• Arkema’s expertise in vegetable-based chemistry
  Arkema benefits from long-standing experience in the use of raw materials of vegetable origin, in particular with castor oil chemistry which has given rise to a group of performance products with high added value, including Rilsan® 11, a top-of-the-range polyamide designed for technical applications, and its by-products used in the perfume and food-processing industries.
  

Arkema’s products derived in part or in full from raw materials of renewable origin (over 20 % of carbon of non-fossil origin, evaluated by an independent body based on an international standard), carry the Arkema Renewables label and are identified by a specific logo. Today they account for almost 5% of Arkema’s sales, and this quota should double by 2012.

Molecular sieves for medical use
People suffering from respiratory disease need a source of oxygen-rich air at all times. Ceca, an Arkema subsidiary, has developed new Siliporite® molecular sieve grades specially designed for apparatus that enrich ambient air to over 90 % oxygen. The operating principle of the apparatus is based on the air passing through zeolite, a porous mineral material whose cavities, with a size of the order of the nanometer, separate the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen.

Many partnerships with customers
Committed to standing out as an innovation-driving supplier, Arkema gives priority to synergies with its customers for the joint development of new products and new applications.

This approach is further reflected in a growing presence and visibility in the Company’s various markets, in particular sports, through corporate brand awareness operations based on co-branding which involves closer ties between brands as well as their respective enhancement. This is for example the case with Arkema’s Pebax® which has been selected by a number of sports equipment manufacturers, including Lotto for the manufacture of a revolutionary football boot - the first lace-free boot -, Asics for its top-of-the-range running shoe, Le Coq Sportif for its new rugby boot present at the 2007 World Cup, and Fischer for its nordic skiing boots.