Innovation is our core business

At Heraeus, new ideas, fresh minds, and collaborative partnerships give rise to innovations that serve society. We rely on research and development, open innovation, and corporate venturing.

Our innovative strength is the basis for Heraeus' technology leadership. We focus on future trends such as health, electromobility, and demographic change. We specifically develop innovative products and solutions to shape them.

In Focus: Fusion Energy

Closing the green energy gap with fusion power

The world's hunger for energy, especially for electricity, is growing. This trend is being driven by increasing electrification in transport, heating, and industry. According to a study by the World Energy Council (WEC), global electricity demand will increase by almost 150 percent by 2060 compared with 2015. This growth cannot be met with renewable energies alone. Nuclear fusion technologies have currently made important progress. This requires powerful lasers, for which Heraeus Conamic supplies high purity fused silica.

Learn more about the importance of fused silica for fusion energy

In Focus: Future Mobility

In Focus: Year of Glass

In Focus: Fusion Energy

Discovering Innovation

Green chemistry from cellulose: Furniture without petroleum

About nine percent of the oil produced worldwide flows into the chemical industry. Biomass can be used to partially replace fossil raw materials. The production of green chemicals requires new processes. Heraeus Precious Metals has developed a catalyst based on the precious metal ruthenium that makes cellulose usable as a raw material for chemicals. This creates sustainable access to adhesives such as those needed by the wood processing industry. This means that in the future there will be less petroleum in our furniture.

Read here how cellulose becomes sustainable chemicals

Interview with innovation expert Dr. Zhang Jing

In October 2018, the Innovation Center of Heraeus Electronics was opened in Shanghai with the guiding idea "Innovating in China for China". Now, Dr. Zhang Jing, Head of Innovation and Engineering Service China, reports in an interview on how this idea developed into "Innovating in China for the World" in recent years and which factors played a special role in this.

Innovative microbe protection for textiles

They are invisible to our eyes, but more dangerous than ever: harmful microorganisms such as viruses, bacteria, or fungi. The Corona pandemic is still showing what they can do. Many dangerous germs also feel at home in our clothing. This is a sensitive area, especially concerning hospital textiles.

Heraeus innovation expert on innovation culture

The way to innovative products and services is through a corporate culture that promotes creativity and curiosity. The fifth part of the Heraeus Innovation Experts series presents why innovation culture is needed and what companies can do to nurture it.

How we drive innovation

Research and development

Research and development have always had a high priority at Heraeus. Our more than 700 R&D employees worldwide drive sustainable solutions for our customers and society every day. With research and application centers around the world, we develop and test products together with local partners.

In research and development, we rely on appropriately specialized units in the individual business segments and on corporate start-ups. In the past financial years 2019 and 2020, Heraeus invested seven percent of revenues excluding precious metals in research and development.

More information about selected Heraeus InnovationCenter:

The InnovationCenter fiftyONE offers our experts and partners a place where they can network and develop innovations together

Welcome to fiftyONE - a place where people network, where new things are created, where knowledge is digitalised and where our customers are the focus of attention. A place that does not restrict. An "Open Space for Open Minds".

Heraeus Innovation: Collaboration Hub Minneapolis — Take a look at our pilot production space: quick-turn prototyping, testing and pilot production of new products and treatment innovations

Helping medical device customers accelerate the design, development and production of medical innovations

In healthcare, speed-to-market is critical. When patient lives are at stake, the medical device industry works with special urgency to get their medical innovations from the concept stage to real-world treatments.

Because the medical device industry relies heavily on strategic outsourcing partnerships, collaboration is increasingly important for medical device manufacturers to augment their internal teams and accelerate product development. Heraeus Medical Components recently opened its state-of-the-art Collaboration Hub specifically to help medical device customers and partners get their products and innovations to market faster.

Consolidating design-development capabilities for “same-place” collaboration

The new 6,200 square-meter facility, located in the heart of “Medical Alley” in Minneapolis, Minnesota, provides customers and partners the opportunity to work on-site or virtually with an ecosystem of Heraeus Medical Components R&D experts, including engineers, designers, materials scientists, production specialists and other technical professionals. By bringing all these critical teams and disciplines together under one roof, collaboration can be faster and more productive.

The Collaboration Hub enables customers to utilize all the needed expertise and development technologies for quick-turn prototyping, testing and pilot production of new products and treatment innovations. The facility’s design and development capabilities include:

Test labs
Clinical simulation lab
Training lab
Machining room
Pilot production capabilities

Heiko Specht, EVP of Innovation for Heraeus Medical Components, sees the Collaboration Hub as a game-changing accelerator for customers and partners to cultivate new ideas, materials and technologies to develop that next breakthrough innovation or treatment. He said, “I am very proud to have all the necessary disciplines under one roof. I truly believe this approach will be a difference-maker. It will help our customers get their products from concept to the real world even faster.”

In our InnovationCenter in Shanghai, Heraeus developers simulate, design and test products and prototypes for the power electronics and semiconductor industries

The Heraeus Electronics InnovationCenter in Shanghai opened its doors in 2018.

On more than 600 square meters, Heraeus developers simulate, design and test products and prototypes for the power electronics and semiconductor industry. Heraeus works with customers at an early stage of development – this supports the development process. Customers are more successful in initial development and introduce the product to the market faster.

With about 58 machines, the Heraeus InnovationCenter has extensive testing and simulation capabilities – including a two-chamber vacuum soldering furnace, a wire bonder for aluminum-copper wires, and test stations for endurance testing and X-ray inspection.

At our Centre of Excellence in Singapore, we develop solutions for electronics megatrends.

The Center of Excellence Singapore has been home to various Heraeus innovation and application teams since its inauguration in April 2020. Equipped with state-of-the-art technologies and an air-conditioned clean room, the center offers innovative measurement processes that provide detailed data and analyses. This enables us to develop material solutions for advanced packaging and system-in-package applications together with our customers.

"We deliberately chose Singapore because it offers an excellent pool of scientists and engineers," says Dr. Michael Joerger, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Innovation at Heraeus Electronics. "The team is dedicated to the megatrends of 5G communications, IoT (Internet of Things), and AI (Artificial Intelligence), which rely heavily on the miniaturization of semiconductor electronics systems. These require advanced packaging applications, which we aim to enable by offering material and application solutions to our customers," he adds.

Open Innovation

The innovation landscape has changed dramatically in recent years. Innovation processes have accelerated. We are convinced that a culture based on open innovation makes us faster and better. That's why we cooperate with external partners - including other companies, research networks, and universities. We are open to new partnerships and focus on interdisciplinarity.

Heraeus Awards

Cross-sector cooperation

Heraeus Accelerator Program

Cooperation with start-ups

Research cooperation

A successful culture of innovation also includes valuing new ideas. Every year, Heraeus honors employees and teams whose ideas create products, improve processes, or solve critical issues for customers. The internal award was established in 2002 as an innovation prize. In addition to in-house research and development projects, open innovation approaches are also valued, as are projects that address market challenges.

Innovations are created by combining the expertise and ideas of different innovation partners. That is why Heraeus also drives cross-industry innovation.

Some examples of this are our involvement in the Hesse-wide hydrogen initiative and our joint development cooperation with Danfoss.

The Heraeus Accelerator was launched in 2019 and offers external start-ups the opportunity to further develop and market their ideas and products together with Heraeus. The project teams present their results at the Demo Day.

We are constantly looking for start-ups working on material solutions for the 21st century. In a regular start-up pitch event, founders with a connection to the TU Darmstadt present their business ideas to the Heraeus community. Our Global Business Units also regularly implement development projects with young companies.

In addition to start-ups, Heraeus is also continuously expanding its cooperation with external research institutes. For example, with the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft for the promotion of applied research or the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers.

Cooperation with Heraeus

Around the world, we look for start-ups and partners from different sectors, invest in promising ideas, and invite start-ups to participate in our Accelerator Program.

Different possibilities to partner up with us

Heraeus Precious Metals Founders Program

Contact us and become our partner

Corporate Incubator

With a corporate incubator initiative, Heraeus promotes the development of new business models and technologies from within the company.

To be able to act more agilely and benefit from cross-linked thinking and interdisciplinary research and development, Heraeus promotes the following business ideas detached from its global business unit structure:

Heraeus AMLOY

Heraeus Battery Technology

Heraeus High Performance Coatings

Heraeus Printed Electronics

Amorphous metals combine unique material properties such as high strength, elasticity and corrosion resistance. Heraeus AMLOY develops amorphous alloys and uses them to produce amorphous components, for example by injection molding or 3D printing.

Heraeus AMLOY

The highly porous carbon additive Porocarb® from Heraeus Battery Technology increases the performance of lithium-ion batteries. By improving the ionic pathways, it increases, for example, the performance of electric vehicles and power tools.

Heraeus Battery Technology

Aerosol Deposition enables the formation of unique metal and ceramic coatings at room temperature on all types of material surfaces. Heraeus High Performance Coatings accompanies customers all the way from initial feasibility study to introducing this new process into series production.

Heraeus High Performance Coatings

Heraeus develops digital printing methods that enable space-saving printing of metallically conductive systems. This innovation in particular contributes to the shielding of components, e.g. in mobile phones.

Heraeus Printed Electronics

Digitization

More than ever, we are using digitization to drive innovation. In 2019 we created the Heraeus Digital Hub, a central unit that drives the digital transformation in the various business units with specific projects and platforms.

The focus of activities is on Data Science & Analytics, Industrial Robotics and Automation, and Supporting Digital Transformation.

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Dr. Irina Hondralis on her role as a digital consultant in Singapore

Remote Services: Seeing the world through different eyes

Jobs in the field of digitization

Innovation culture

Innovation is a people's business – it is not created in a vacuum, but by people developing good ideas in an open culture. That's why we offer as an employer: Open Space. For Open Minds.®

Agile project management, exchange with external experts, market driven innovation management, innovation centers, and rewarding innovative ideas with the Heraeus Awards are just a few examples of how Heraeus promotes a thriving innovation culture.