The Innovation Award laureates

Best Product Innovation:
New conductive adhesives with reduced silver content
(Daniel Hanselmann and team, Heraeus Materials Technology)

Conductive adhesives containing silver connect electronic and electrical components in electrical circuits, semiconductor components, smart cards, displays, and sensors. Conventional adhesives require a silver content of more than 70 percent by weight to maintain their electrical conductivity. If an adhesive contains too few silver particles, they can no longer touch each other, and the electrical connection is interrupted. Conductive adhesives play a critical role in electronics, but because of cost pressure, the number of competing technologies is steadily growing. Daniel Hanselmann and his team have developed a cost-effective alternative. Their innovation replaces the conventional spherical silver particles in the adhesive with lamellar conductive silver particles. These silver flakes are supported and aligned by a scaffolding of less expensive spherical filling materials. With this geometrical 'trick,' – the mixture of conductive and nonconductive particles – Heraeus is able to reduce the adhesive's silver content to less than 40 percent by weight without impairing its reliability and electrical properties.

Best Process Innovation: Innovative dissolving process for catalysts containing palladium
(Dr. Christoph Röhlich and team, Heraeus Precious Metals)

Monoethylene glycol (MEG) is a key component in a number of important modern materials, such as polyester and PET. More than 20 million tons of MEG are used each year around the world. In China alone, demand is rising by 7% annually. One source of raw materials for MEG is the coal deposits there. The conversion of coal to MEG involves using catalysts containing palladium. The introduction of this process in China has generated large quantities of spent catalysts, which can be recycled. Dr. Christoph Röhlich and his team have developed an innovative recycling method that involves a series of processing steps to separate the palladium from the catalyst carrier, attaining nearly 100 percent recovery of the precious metal. Important side effect: In the standard process, the catalyst is melted at more than 1200°C, which destroys the catalyst carrier. In the innovative recycling method the spherical catalyst carrier is retained intact and can be dried and then reused for the production of new catalysts.

2nd place Product Innovation: Innovative materials for OLED lamps
(Dr. Armin Sautter and team, Heraeus Precious Metals)

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are highly efficient and provide a pleasant light. An OLED consists of a very thin layered structure just 200 to 500 nanometers thick. As a result, they can be fabricated as transparent displays on flexible substrates, curved and shaped, thereby giving designers of lamps and lighting concepts a great deal of freedom. Despite their many advantages, these lamps are still too expensive to penetrate the mass market. Dr. Armin Sautter and his team have achieved a breakthrough by developing a new material for producing these thin layers. For a key functional layer on the OLED, the team uses a conductive polymer that can be applied as a thin layer by printing and coating processes, forming transparent conductive films. Unlike previous materials, the product can perform two essential functions of the OLED in a single layer: the injection of positive charge carriers and the function of the transparent electrodes. The combination of this conductive polymer with a printed silver-metal mesh will significantly reduce the cost of producing OLEDs.

3rd place Product Innovation: Production of a temperature-resistant platinum-siloxane catalyst
(Jörg Fuchs Alameda and team, Heraeus Precious Metals)

Labels, medical tubes, baby pacifiers, and special paper coatings all have one thing in common: They contain silicones. High-quality silicones are produced from polysiloxanes using platinum-siloxane catalysts. Heraeus is the leading supplier of these special homogeneous catalysts, which must constantly be adapted to meet the market's evolving demands. In order to coat paper with a thin layer of silicone, a major Chinese supplier to label manufacturers required a highly temperature-resistant catalyst with good storage stability and processability even at high ambient temperatures. Problem: The standard colorless catalyst slowly decomposes at higher temperatures. A Heraeus team of German and Chinese developers has come up with a stable variation of the organometallic platinum-siloxane catalyst. The breakthrough involved adding a precisely measured quantity of a stabilizer. The new laboratory synthesis was successfully taken to production scale at Heraeus Shanghai.

Best Product Innovation: A novel rare earth doped fused silica for high power fiber lasers
(Dr. Andreas Langner, Heraeus Quarzglas)

High-power fiber Iasers are indispensable in material processing and industrial manufacturing technology. Fiber Iasers are, for example, utilized in the automotive industry for cutting, welding and drilling metal sheets several millimeters thick. Intensive research is being carried out around the world to improve the Iaser systems and their performance. Dr. Andreas Langner and a group of researchers at the Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT) in Jena achieved a breakthrough in the development of an innovative core material for laser fibers. This new process makes it possible to build multi-kilowatt fiber lasers (extra-large-mode-area lasers, or XLMA) that generate more than five kilowatts of laser power from a single glass fiber for the first time ever. Until now, such high-performance fiber Iaser systems were only possible through the very complex, expensive and fault-prone combination of multiple individual fibers. This new process enables new, complex fiber laser designs with large laser-active core volumes. No other material in the world compares.

Product Innovation, Second Place: Celcion® – Heat Management System for LED
(Mark Challingsworth, Heraeus Precious Metals)

The Celcion® thick-film material system developed by Mark Challingsworth and his team allows light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to glow more intensely for a longer period of time than before by significantly lowering the junction temperature of the LED device. Celcion® was developed for building circuits directly on aluminum substrates. Assembling LEDs with the innovative material system is more economical than previous processes using metal core printed circuit boards. Because of their good heat conductivity, Celcion®-based LEDs have either a longer life or greater light output. The Celcion® system enables a selective assembly process in which paste is applied only where necessary. This leads to fewer processing steps and reduces material consumption. Because Celcion® circuits run about 10°C cooler, they last longer at the same light intensity. This also means that the light intensity can be increased by 20% with the same surface area (or circuit size) at the same temperature. This, in turn, can lower production costs.

Product Innovation, Third Place: QuiK-Spec®
(Jan Cuypers, Heraeus Electro-Nite)

Jan Cuypers developed QuiK-Spec®, a sensor measuring system for the steel industry that conducts chemical analyses of significant, sometimes unwanted, substances directly during smelting – faster than ever. The system allows steel producers to measure temperature as well as oxygen content, manganese, phosphorus, sulfur, and carbon in less than a minute, avoiding time-consuming detours through a chemistry lab. The system combines a sensor with a sampler and a spectrometer robot (QuiK-Lab®), which immediately tests the sample. This accelerates and increases steel production, because it eliminates the need of waiting for results from the lab. At the same time, it improves the manufacturing process, since the important information about the composition of the steel is immediately available. Steel expert Jan Cuypers had already won Best Product Innovation in 2011, for developing a measurement system for the aluminum industry

Best Process Innovation: Near net shape lens blank for microlithography
(Dörte Schönfeld, Heraeus Quarzglas)

Various photo masks are used in microlithography to project the structures of highly complex integrated microchip circuits with widths of just nanometers onto silicon wafers. Lens systems made of bubble-free, laser-resistant fused silica reproduce these minute chip structures in sharp detail. Until just a few years ago, lens blanks for microlithography were exclusively coplanar disks. Customers then ground away considerable amounts of the highly valuable quartz glass when producing the final lens shape. Dörte Schönfeld's new process minimizes this sophisticated and time-consuming process step for the user and developed therefore the necessary measurement. The innovation finally makes it possible to manufacture lens blanks with near-final contours, while also measuring their characteristics. The blanks are made from quartz glass, which is preformed into the general shape of the lens. Blanks with near-final contours offer customers added value by saving money and eliminating several processing steps.

Best Product Innovation:
Large-scale technical synthesis of platinum oxalate
(Dr. Richard Walter, Heraeus Precious Metals)

With the development of a new production process Heraeus can now produce platinum oxalate - a precious metal compound used as a precursor for process catalysts by the chemical industry - on a large scale for the first time. An international Heraeus development team led by Dr. Richard Walter scaled up the synthesis from the laboratory to commercial production. Platinum oxalate is thermally unstable and can decompose explosively when improperly exposed to heat. An innovative reaction method plays a key role in process safety for the production of this chemical. The process was modified by the developers so that the dark blue platinum oxalate synthesis can be conducted significantly below the compound's decomposition temperature, thereby solving the problem of unregulated decomposition. Heraeus is currently the only supplier of platinum oxalate, giving it a unique position in the market.

Best Process Innovation I:
Recycling process for fluorinated catalysts and products
(Dr. Jan Schapp, Heraeus Precious Metals)

Fluoride is increasingly being used in the production of chemicals for agricultural use as well as the specialty electronics industry. Heraeus Precious Metals has had a recycling facility in Taicang, China, for three years that has served the Chinese chemical and pharmaceutical industries. In order to meet new demand from the agrochemical industry, the location has recently been expanded. The expansion is intended to specifically process used palladium catalysts containing fluoride from the agricultural industry. The recycling facility is a state-of-the-art furnace system consisting of one combustion chamber with a customized temperature program, followed by an exhaust treatment system equipped with the latest technology. The process innovation from Dr. Jan Schapp utilizes a special combination of different fluorine-resistant insulating liners in the construction of system components. Fluorine is a highly reactive element that attacks almost every type of material. Thanks to this process, Heraeus is currently the only recycling provider for fluorinated materials.

Best Process Innovation II:
Reduced fabrication cost process for metal-oxide materials
(Dr. Kyung Chung, Heraeus Materials Technology)

After six years of intensive development work with a large engineering team around Kyung Chung, Heraeus Materials Technology in Chandler, Arizona, came up with a new proprietary manufacturing process for metal-oxide based sputtering targets. The new fabrication method was successfully implemented several months ago and enables to enhance process efficiency and flexibility through the rearrangement and optimization of several manufacturing steps. Heraeus produces disc-shaped sputtering targets which are applied for coatings in magnetic data storage devices. Here special metal-containing materials are used for the recording layers.

2nd place - Product Innovation:
Antibiotic coating process for cementless arthroplasty
(Dr. Ekaterini Copanaki, Heraeus Medical)

Around 1.4 million hip prosthetics were implanted worldwide in 2011. There are two methods for anchoring prosthetic implants: cementless and cemented. For cemented implants Heraeus Medical offers a unique portfolio of bone cements containing antibiotics for a variety of applications. Dr. Ekaterini Copanaki has developed an innovative process for coating cementless arthroplasty with antibiotics. The antibiotic is released directly from the implant at the operation site within the body over a defined period of time, preventing infections from taking hold. For the first time, this innovation (ready-to-use coating device) enables a very effective prophylactic application of antibiotic protection directly on the prosthesis.

2nd place - Product Innovation:
Components for medical implants made of magnetically hard, biocompatible precious metals alloys
(Dr. Jörg-Martin Gebert, Heraeus Precious Metals)

Some 20 million patients worldwide suffer from advanced heart failure, which means the heart can no longer pump the necessary amount of blood through the body. Cardiac support systems are implanted in these patients, taking over the function of the still-beating heart to a great extent. Dr. Jörg-Martin Gebert developed a process for manufacturing the core component of these medical implants out of magnetically hard precious-metal alloys, enabling a particularly efficient and small-scale design for cardiac support systems. Heraeus is opening up a new market segment with these medical technology components. The customer receives a complete solution from Heraeus—biocompatible, compact, and efficient. In the future, the entire production process of this component will be conducted at Heraeus which will guarantee the process control and quality of this critical component.

1st place Product Innovation:
Revolutionary temperature measurement with FiberLanceTM
(Jan Cuypers, Heraeus Electro-Nite)

Aluminum is favored the world over as a light metal by the automotive, aircraft, and packaging industries. Precise temperature control is essential to its manufacture. Fast, accurate temperature measurement of the aluminum bath (electrolysis), means a more energy efficient manufacturing process. Heraeus Electro-Nite Developer Jan Cuypers and his team have come up with a true innovation in measurement technology. Instead of utilizing industry-standard thermocouples, Heraeus offers temperature measurement with optical fibers. FiberLance™ was developed to directly and precisely measure bath temperatures in industrial furnaces for primary aluminum manufacturing. The measurement system uses new technology: an optical fiber connected to a light detecting sensor. The quartz glass optical fiber is consumed during measurement, but since it is supplied in 100 m lengths on a plastic drum, companies can perform up to 10,000 bath temperature measurements without recalibrating the device.

2nd place Product Innovation
Clevios – organic electronics for touch screens
(Dr. Stephan Kirchmeyer, Heraeus Precious Metals)

Under the brand name Clevios™, Heraeus produces conductive polymers that take the form of bluish dispersions; they form electrical functional coatings and are finding more and more areas of application in our daily lives. Flexible touch screens for smartphones and tablet PCs represent one new use. These intuitive user interfaces are based on innovative microelectronics on thin films with conductive coatings. With a combination of various conductive polymers and a newly developed etching technology, Dr Stephan Kirchmeyer and a team of developers have succeeded in making these functional films on touchscreens completely invisible to the human eye. Modern touch screen technology requires specific structuring of the surface into conductive and nonconductive areas. The new etching technology replaces mechanical structuring by deactivating the conductivity without removing the polymer. This results in conductive structures that are completely invisible to the eye.

3rd place Product Innovation:
Innovative platinum protection system lowers cost of manufacturing special glass (Nicole Gübler, Heraeus Materials Technology)

Because of their chemical resistance and high melting points, platinum and its alloys are used as a component material in the glass industry during the melting and manufacture of special glass (such as display panels) at high temperatures above 1400°C. The hotter the molten glass, the more efficiently high-quality glass can be refined and produced. The bad news: At the high temperatures used, platinum reacts with oxygen to form platinum oxides and evaporates from the surface of components. Nicole Gübler and her team developed an innovative ceramic layer that is applied like a second skin to seal the platinum component. This protective covering significantly inhibits the evaporation of platinum as platinum oxide and allows for a working temperature of 1650°C. This innovation helps reduce the processing and thus manufacturing costs for special glass while saving valuable resources.

Best Process Innovation:
A cost-effective process for manufacturing large-diameter quartz glass tubes for the semiconductor industry
(Michael Hahn, Heraeus Quarzglas)

The ultrapure high-tech material quartz glass has become indispensable in the production of optical fibers for the telecommunications industry, semiconductors, and solar cells for photovoltaics. Microchips are made from silicon wafers with a diameter of 300 millimeters. Large-diameter quartz glass tubes play a key role in manufacturing these wafers. These tubes are stable at high temperatures and are needed for numerous steps performed in process chambers. Thanks to a process innovation by Michael Hahn and an international team of developers, Heraeus can manufacture large-diameter quartz glass tubes for 300-mm wafer technology even more cost effectively and efficiently. The unique, flexible process and globally standardized reshaping processes considerably reduced the process steps compared to the previous procedure. This innovation allows Heraeus to make even larger tubes for the next generation of silicon wafers, which are based on 450-mm technology.