WACKER: Exploring Innovative Applications of Silicones——An Interview with Dr. Christian Kirsten, a Member of the Executive Board of Wacker Chemie AG

Silicones are in every corner of our lives. They play an important role in industries such as automotive, healthcare and construction. In 1947, Wacker Chemie AG (WACKER) became the first European company to produce silicones, and now it is one of the world’s largest producers of silicone products, offering about 3,000 highly specialized innovative silicone products to customers around the world. In 2023, WACKER’s sales amounted to about 6.4 billion euros, in which WACKER SILICONES accounted for more than 40 percent, making it a core business for the 110-year-old multinational chemicals producer.

International Plastics News for Asia spoke with Dr. Christian Kirsten, a member of the executive board of WACKER. Besides being in charge of WACKER’s global sales & distribution, corporate security and two production sites in Germany, he also headed WACKER’s silicone division. In this interview, Dr. Kirsten talked about the innovative applications of WACEKR’s silicone products in the automotive industry, WACKER’s strategy in global and Chinese markets, as well as the company’s achievements in sustainable development.

Dr. Christian Kirsten, Member of the Executive Board, WACKER

Investment in Downstream Specialty Manufacturing

IRNA:As a globally active chemical company with a long history, WACKER's products are used in people’s everyday lives. Could you give us a brief introduction of WACKER SILICONES?

Dr. Kirsten: We're running the company along 4 divisions—SILICONES, POLYMERS, BIOSOLUTIONS and POLYSILICON. Among them, SILICONES is a very important sector. We are offering about 3,000 tailor-made solutions to our customers in almost the entire spectrum of manufacturing industries including automotive, electronics, construction, personal care, cosmetics, etc.

In 2023, WACKER SILICONES accounted for roughly 2.74 billion euros in sales, which is about 43 percent of the GROUP’s total sales. We also have a global network of highly passionate and professional team members around the world--more than 6,000 team members in total in the silicones division.

IRNA:According to WACKER’s strategic growth targets, by 2030, your company is aiming for sales of €10 billion, among which the sales volumes of the silicone business will double. What measures is WACKER taking to accomplish this target?

Dr. Kirsten: We are always in continuing investment in our big manufacturing sites in Europe, where we focus on continuous improvement especially in the upstream and midstream areas. We announced this year the establishment of a new manufacturing site in Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic, which will be our second manufacturing site apart from the one in Pilsen. The site will exclusively be focused on downstream specialty manufacturing.

In China, over the past two decades, WACKER has increased its localized production. We already started our investments many years ago when we established our plant in Zhangjiagang site in 2006. We launched an investment initiative in 2023 to invest especially into downstream capacities at our Zhangjiagang site, where we will focus on downstream manufacturing to support our specialty business.

We also supported our commitment to the China business by actively looking for quality partners, such as making a 60 percent stake acquisition of SICO in 2022, a specialty silane manufacturer in Shandong Province. The investment will strengthen our portfolio of organofunctional silanes, which are very important building blocks for our specialty silicones.

IRNA:Why do you make such business layout in the Chinese market?

Dr. Kirsten: China is the single biggest market in the world for chemicals in general, not only for silicones, but also for many target industries such as automotive and electronics. In particular, we see the growth expectations for silicones specifically as very attractive here in China, as the per capita use of silicones in China is significantly below the one in Europe or in the United States. This gives us confidence that there is significant room for growth in those business areas.

WACKER Silicones’ Innovative Applications

IRNA:Silicones have versatile applications and are widely used in the automotive industry. Could you introduce one or two silicone products of WACKER for the automotive industry that have special technological advantages? 

Dr. Kirsten: The first example I would like to give is our ELASTOSIL® series which can be used for components in electric vehicles, like onboard chargers and AC-DC converters. Those materials allow our customers to not only miniaturize those components, but are also more reliable than former generations of products, especially when it comes to performance against environmental factors like temperature changes, mechanical stress, vibration, humidity, etc.

Another example is WACKER’s ready-to-use silicone rubber. Nowadays, many of the connectors which have traditionally been made from regular plastic have been replaced with flame-retardant engineering plastics, but the properties of many of those engineering plastics were not sufficient to fight the environmental requirements or the mechanical stress factors. Our silicone rubber provides flame retardancy in combination with high resistance and reliability against vibration, mechanical stress, temperature, etc, and therefore can help our customers drive innovation and improve the properties of the automotive components.

IRNA:Apart from outstanding material properties, what other advantages does WACKER possess in terms of supplying clients?

Dr. Kirsten: I think another important advantage we have is the closeness our teams have with the customers that allow iterative development of innovative products. With our global footprint with an integrated supply chain, we are able to manufacture our products always close to our customers. Also, our technical capabilities are represented in all regions. This allows us to accelerate the innovation process quite significantly.

IRNA:In addition to electric vehicles, the rise of emerging industries such as healthcare and electronics has also opened up demand for the silicone market. From your perspective, what are some of the rising trends in application scenarios for silicones in the future？

Dr. Kirsten: We see a number of megatrends rising up around the world, particularly in China. One is aging population, which fuels an emerging need for silicone-based solutions in the healthcare sector. For example, silicones have big advantages being more skin-friendly and more acceptable to aging and very young patients. The skin-friendliness is also very welcomed for respirator masks. This new trend is very attractive for WACKER, as we can provide a series of solutions to make medical products reliable and better performing.

We also see the trend of urbanization in China. More than 60 percent of people in China are already living in cities. That drives the construction industry where we have a lot of products to offer as well.

Then there’s the trend of digitalization. AI is driving the need for silicones for semiconductor applications. As semiconductors grow smaller in size, heat management becomes a key challenge for our customers. Silicones are fantastic materials to find solutions for those challenges.

Commitment to the Chinese Market

IRNA:WACKER has been operating in China for more than 30 years. How do you see the differences with regard to the Chinese market compared with other markets?

Dr. Kirsten: What we see in China is a very high degree of agility, speed, and an ever-increasing growth over the last 30 years. That is probably very special about China compared to other regions. Our teams in China are willing to learn and driving innovation to the next level. This makes WACKER confident about its future growth in China. We will commit to the Chinese market now and in the future. 

IRNA:What are some of the specific challenges that you observed in the Chinese market and what was your response？

Dr. Kirsten: Healthy competition is conducive to the technological innovation and product development, and a fair competitive environment is crucial. We are pleased to see that over the past few years, the Chinese market has made significant progress in improving the business environment. We also look forward to the fair and orderly protection of our solutions and continuous innovation capabilities as always.

IRNA:At this year’s Battery Show Europe, WACKER presented two new products ELASTOSIL® CM 181 and ELASTOSIL® CM 185. Are those two products also available in the Chinese market? Will WACKER’s silicones be tailored to the needs of different markets? For example, will silicone products produced in Zhangjiagang also supply other regions of the world?

Dr. Kirsten: In general, we are trying to offer a global portfolio. So wherever we see customers requiring products, we will make sure that those are made available in different regions. Whether we manufacture them also locally is very much dependent on the demand. As demand increases, we usually make sure that all the production and technical support is made available locally, close to the customer's requirements.

In general, we are following an "in the region for the region" manufacturing strategy, which means that predominantly the capacities that we are establishing in Zhangjiagang are built for China, even if there always may be exceptions where we make specialty products also available for global supply chains.

Sustainability: A Core Element of WACKER’s Corporate Strategy

IRNA:WACKER has set the target to reduce the absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030. Could you please elaborate more on WACKER's sustainable strategy and the latest progress?

Dr. Kirsten: WACKER has the responsibility to reduce our footprint and to make sure that we treat the limited resources of our planet in a responsible way. In that respect, WACKER has announced to become net zero by 2045. We have defined phase targets on our way.

By 2030, we committed to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent. I am happy to say that we are on a very good track to achieve that target.  All our products that we offer to our customers should meet the sustainability targets and all of our suppliers need to meet sustainability targets.

We are systematically transferring our production sites to be supplied with green energy. For example, at our silicon metal manufacturing site in Holla, Norway, we are in the process to convert to a BIO-based reductant, which will allow us basically to reduce the CO2 emissions for the silicon metal- the base feedstock for our silicones to zero or even to a net negative value with some additional measures.

IRNA:How are WACKER’s silicones solutions enable the customers to become more sustainable?

Dr. Kirsten: We offer solutions for electric vehicles to make batteries more performance, more reliable, safer. There are also other examples where silicon can help our customers drive innovation and become more sustainable.

Silicon materials play a super important role as encapsulant for the production of solar modules and solar panels, which are incredibly important on our transition to green energy. Heat transfer fluids which are silicon-based, are also very important, not only for industrial process, heat generation processes, but also for heat recovery technologies. There are many other examples where sustainability also offers an opportunity to grow our business and help our crucial customers in the supply chain meet sustainable emission development standards.