Evonik: join forces to create a better future

—Interview with Dr. Jean Vincent, Global Vice President of Evonik’s Comfort and Insulation Materials Business Line Advanced Polyurethane Product Line

Evonik Industries is a German company with a history of more than 150 years and a global leader in specialty chemicals. The charming Evonik has always insisted on continuous innovation and development, and continued to create good results. So far, its business covers more than 100 countries and regions around the world; the 2017 financial report of Evonik shows that more than 36,000 employees of Evonik created approximately 14.4 billion euros Excellent results in sales; Evonik ranked 17th in the list of the world’s top 50 chemical companies in 2017, and maintained a good trend of increasing year by year.

In addition, Evonik has also achieved good results in the field of polyurethane additives. As Evonik completed the acquisition of Air Products’ functional materials business in early 2017, Evonik’s organically modified siloxane plant was completed and put into operation in Shanghai in late 2017. Online trading platform; this series of actions and market layout shows Evonik’s confidence in the future development of the polyurethane market. Recently, during the 2018 China PU CHINA exhibition, we were honored to interview Dr. Jean Vincent, vice president of the global advanced polyurethane product line of Evonik’s comfort and insulation materials business line, and conducted face-to-face exchanges on the innovative development achievements of Evonik and its polyurethane additives business.


Leading environmental protection, green and healthy

At present, customers in the market are interested in low VOC and zero emission The demand for products is increasing, and in many polyurethane end-use markets, environmental regulations are very strict. In the face of this environmental protection trend, Dr. Jean Vincent said that Evonik has been actively paying attention to new trends in market development. The company pays great attention to the environmental protection characteristics of products on a global scale. Low VOC and zero emission products have always been Evonik’s most important value. One of the product portfolio. In recent years, China has paid more and more attention to environmental protection. Taking the automobile industry as an example, the GB/T 27630-2011 recommended standard “Guidelines for Air Quality Evaluation of Passenger Cars” was released in 2011, and it became a mandatory draft standard in 2016 and Being included in the National VI emission standards, China’s requirements and controls on the air quality in the car are becoming more and more stringent, so the market demand for low-VOC and zero-emission products continues to increase, and the requirements are getting higher and higher.

Evonik has proposed three application solutions for this trend: one is to focus on the launch of zero-emission catalysts. Dr. Jean Vincent reviewed the product line she is responsible for. She introduced that the company is currently actively promoting the application of Zero-emission reactive catalysts for automotive interiors, these catalysts have a very strong market demand, and Evonik’s latest NE1550 new generation reactive catalyst has excellent gel activity, and will not affect other interior materials such as polycarbonate Corrosion occurs; second, Evonik has ultra-low VOC silicone oil surfactant technology and has a rich product portfolio; third, Evonik has launched aldehyde scavenger products. This series of products is aimed at problems such as aldehyde emission in cars The innovative solutions introduced, such as the new generation product OLTEGOL LA2, can effectively reduce the formaldehyde and acetaldehyde content of polyurethane interior decoration. In addition, although there are no specific standards for odors in the current regulations, Chinese people are generally very sensitive to odors in cars, which poses a more stringent challenge to many interior products currently on the market. Evonik’s zero-emission catalyst products can help customers improve odor to a certain extent, but obviously we can do more, so one of the company’s current research and development priorities is to develop solutions that can help customers further improve odor. At the same time, the company currently has new solutions in the field of environmentally friendly artificial leather, including water-based and solvent-free products. Dr. Jean Vincent said that providing customers with more environmentally friendly products is one of Evonik’s constant pursuits.

Higher quality, more innovation

Regarding the topic of how to control product quality, Dr. Jean Vincent told Reporter, “High quality is the magic weapon for Evonik to maintain its competitive advantage. Maintaining high quality is also one of our goals. We have our own unique understanding and approach to this.” First, what Evonik pursues is to ensure the stability of high-quality products and continuity, for example, the company will conduct performance tests for the production of each batch of silicone oil surfactants, which requires a lot of manpower, material resources and time, and strive to ensure the quality continuity and stability of each batch of products; the second is continuous innovation, The company will continue to introduce new solutions to meet market demand, which poses a challenge to Evonik’s R&D capabilities, because it requires strong R&D capabilities, analysis capabilities, and innovation capabilities. Dr. Jean Vincent pointed out that from the United States, Germany and even Asia , Evonik has strong R&D teams in various regions or countries, and the global�More than 100 R&D technicians, who have extremely rich experience in the polyurethane industry; third, Evonik has always maintained a good cooperative relationship with downstream customers, and at the same time, Evonik will continue to strengthen ties with customers to provide customers with more diversified , Improve systematic product solutions.

A perfect combination of strengths

Speaking of Evonik’s acquisition of Air Products’ specialty additives business, Dr. Jean Vincent summed it up in this sentence: the combination of the strong and the perfect match. Dr. Jean Vincent affirms the positive impact of the acquisition on the company.

First of all, she said that Evonik was more focused on the silicone oil surfactant business before, while Air Products had more expertise in catalysts. This strong combination has greatly improved Evonik’s research and development capabilities. Usually, some technical problems in the application of polyurethane are often solved from the two directions of catalyst or silicone oil surfactant, but this often requires the mutual technical support of the two. Now Evonik shares the technical resources of the two to solve them more efficiently. Issues facing the polyurethane industry. In general, Dr. Jean Vincent believes that the combination of the two can give full play to the technical advantages of 1+1>2.

Secondly, Evonik combines the supply chain of the two parties, which can also play more advantages. The combination of supply chains has enabled Evonik to have many more factories and storage points around the world, which provides more convenience and stability for its services, and can better meet the supply to customers. The company has more than ever More flexible resources for deployment.

Finally, the biggest advantage for Evonik lies in the synergistic effect of customer relationship. The two have greatly improved the complementarity of customer resources and the coverage of customers.

Dr. Jean Vincent emphasized that Evonik and Air Products have very similar business philosophy and values. Both parties attach great importance to customer relationship and product innovation research and development, and also pay great attention to product quality and future sustainable development . She said: “The biggest change after the merger is that Evonik and Air Products collided with new sparks in the process of integration, thus giving birth to a brand new product line. In addition to continuing to focus on automotive and microporous elastic products, this product line body applications, and will also focus on areas that the two companies did not have the energy to do in-depth research, such as CASE, artificial leather and composite materials. Evonik hopes to focus more on the polyurethane market in the future, covering more product categories, and providing customers with rich and comprehensive solutions. services.”

Based on China, Innovating the Future

Regarding the future development direction of Evonik, Dr. Jean Vincent Said, “Our current R&D focus is on zero-emission catalysts and low-VOC silicone oil surfactants, but in the next plan, we will further develop low-odor, low-aldehyde, water-based and other additive products. We hope that in the future The new materials developed will bring more innovation possibilities to the polyurethane industry.” She said that the future market will be driven by environmental protection regulations to produce more new technology and application requirements, and environmentally friendly products will be a major development in the future trend. At the same time, Evonik will also strengthen the research and development of environmentally friendly synthetic leather, composite materials and driverless car materials.

Dr. Jean Vincent added that unmanned driving will bring new development opportunities to the automotive industry in the future, but unmanned driving technology will also put forward higher performance requirements for polyurethane materials.

As a preferred supplier of polyurethane additives, Dr. Jean Vincent hopes that Evonik can provide customers with more abundant, higher-quality and stable product solutions, so that polyurethane materials can better improve people’s quality of life . At the same time, Dr. Jean Vincent expressed with confidence that one of Evonik’s goals is to become the global market leader in polyurethane additives. To achieve this goal, Evonik must always maintain its core competitiveness: innovation, high quality and customer relations , this is the purpose that Evonik has always implemented, and it is also the service concept that Evonik has always maintained.


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Introduction to Dr. Jean Vincent:

2017-Present, Global Vice President of Advanced Polyurethane Product Line, Evonik Comfort and Insulation Business Line;
2014-2017, Global Technical Director, Polyurethane Business Line, Air Products;
2012-2014, Air Products Polyurethane Business Line Americas Technical Manager;
1999-2012, Air Products Company, successively served as R&D Manager of Electronic Special Gas, Polyurethane and other business products, and application technology development manager.