Cov­estro invests 100 mil­lion Euros in R&D to boost glob­al innov­a­tion centers

Cov­estro invests around 100 mil­lion Euros in its glob­al R&D infra­struc­ture and assets. With invest­ments over a time­frame of three years until 2025, the glob­al sup­pli­er of high-per­form­ance mater­i­als con­tin­ues to secure its future com­pet­it­ive­ness in a chal­len­ging envir­on­ment. To cre­ate value for cus­tom­ers in every busi­ness sec­tion, the com­pany focusses on future tech­no­lo­gies to accel­er­ate on the way to a full cir­cu­lar eco­nomy. A glob­al digit­al­iz­a­tion strategy in R&D is a key build­ing block on this way. Cov­estro is com­mit­ted to becom­ing fully cir­cu­lar with con­tinu­ous invest­ments in its main innov­a­tion cen­ters. With mod­ern­ized equip­ment for cus­tom­er ser­vice, auto­mated sys­tems and new digit­al cap­ab­il­it­ies being intro­duced in labor­at­or­ies and tech­nic­al cen­ters around the globe, Cov­estro fol­lows a hol­ist­ic approach with activ­it­ies at dif­fer­ent levels.

Sucheta Gov­il, CCO at Cov­estro: ​“Our invest­ments in R&D are integ­ral to our strategy of cre­at­ing value for our cus­tom­ers. They are enabling us to expand and main­tain our innov­a­tion pipeline at a high level. By this, we are the go-to part­ner for more sus­tain­able solu­tions which help to meet the cli­mate-neut­ral­ity tar­gets of our cus­tom­ers. Thanks to this glob­al innov­a­tion boost­er, we come even closer to our joint goal to become fully circular.”

Digit­al­iz­a­tion leads the way to the labor­at­ory of the future

One of the key examples of the R&D invest­ments and cooper­a­tion across dif­fer­ent busi­ness seg­ments is the glob­ally avail­able expert­ise for In-Mold-Coat­ing (i.e., Dir­ect Coat­ing), with the facil­it­ies in Leverkusen and oth­er main R&D sites that were enhanced recently. To sup­port fur­ther devel­op­ments in pro­cess tech­no­logy, end-to-end digit­al­iz­a­tion was imple­men­ted to record all pro­cess-rel­ev­ant data. In the highly com­pet­it­ive auto­mot­ive industry, innov­a­tion in In-Mold-Coat­ing tech­no­lo­gies enables high qual­ity sur­faces for a mod­ern design of cars. This dir­ectly feeds the demand for a more effi­cient auto­mot­ive production.

Anoth­er import­ant invest­ment mile­stone: High-per­form­ance com­puters (HPCII) mark the next expan­sion stage of tech­no­lo­gic­al evol­u­tion in Leverkusen towards an innov­a­tion incub­at­or for the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy. By enabling sim­u­la­tion of chem­ic­al pro­cesses, the high-per­form­ance com­puters enable faster and more sus­tain­able research pro­cesses. Amongst oth­ers they are used for example in foam pro­cessing sim­u­la­tions for refri­ger­at­ors and enable energy effi­ciency and improved cool chains in end products.

“Sim­u­la­tions of chem­ic­al pro­cesses are a key ele­ment in the devel­op­ment of recyc­ling tech­no­lo­gies and research on new molecule clas­si­fic­a­tions,” said Tor­sten Heine­mann, Head of Group Innov­a­tion & Sus­tain­ab­il­ity at Cov­estro. ​“Moreover, labor­at­ory digit­al­iz­a­tion enables test data to be recor­ded in high­er qual­ity and to a great­er extent than is usu­al in ana­logue ways. Both help us to find the most pos­sible and more sus­tain­able solu­tions for our cus­tom­ers more quickly. Many devel­op­ments in the field of recyc­ling would be like look­ing for a needle in a hay­stack without digit­al R&D and simulations. “

Chem­ic­al recyc­ling is a prom­ising approach espe­cially for plastics that can­not be mech­an­ic­ally recycled or can only be recycled with con­sid­er­able effort. With chem­ic­al recyc­ling, large quant­it­ies of the ori­gin­al mater­i­al can be recovered. One example is the Evo­c­ycle^® CQ mat­tress pro­ject: Togeth­er with part­ners, Cov­estro has developed an innov­at­ive tech­no­logy for the chemo­lys­is of flex­ible poly­ureth­ane foams from used mat­tresses, in which the main com­pon­ents –poly­ol and the pre­curs­or to the iso­cy­anate TDI – can be recovered. In this way, used mat­tress foams are dir­ectly con­ver­ted back into renewed poly­ureth­ane build­ing blocks.

Infra­struc­ture and glob­al sites bene­fit from ongo­ing investment

A func­tion­ing infra­struc­ture is the basis for innov­at­ive research. Covestro’s invest­ments there­fore include mod­ern­iz­a­tion meas­ures in its labor­at­or­ies in Leverkusen. These labor­at­or­ies drive among oth­ers applic­a­tion tech­no­logy for coat­ings and adhes­ives in core indus­tries like auto­mot­ive and con­struc­tion, but also spe­cial areas such as light guid­ing applic­a­tions as well as med­ic­al applications.

Also in the U.S., Cov­estro is invest­ing in a series of mod­ern­iz­a­tion and tech­nic­al upgrades across its Pitt­s­burgh cam­pus. Cov­estro views the U.S. mar­ket as innov­at­ive and high poten­tial. By improv­ing the R&D facil­it­ies it sig­nals strong com­mit­ment to the customers.

In the innov­a­tion cen­ter in Shang­hai, China, dis­tinct invest­ments into infra­struc­ture and digit­al­iz­a­tion over the past months echoed the lead­ing solu­tions devel­op­ments for auto­mot­ive and elec­tron­ics industries.