A Century of Expansion and Progress
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Company history A century of expansion and progress m.t. of acetone—WACKER’s very first Martin Doriat had developed the process at product—left Burghausen for Leverkusen, Burghausen. Berg later became managing for conversion by Bayer into synthetic rubber director of WACKER. for use by the German Imperial Navy for its The first vinyl chloride plant started up submarines during the First World War. in 1938 at Burghausen, launching the era The Consortium für elektrochemi- of WACKER PVC, which the company sche Industrie moved from Nuremberg to marketed under the trade name VINNOL®. Munich and the company relocated its head WACKER produced PVC for 60 years, office within Munich at the end of 1919, to beginning its exit from the business in July Prinzregentenstrasse 20/22. This would 1993—when it merged its PVC activities remain the company’s address until 1992. with those of Hoechst AG to create Vinnolit The company produced the solvent ethyl Kunststoff—and finally quitting the PVC acetate at Burghausen for the first time in business in 2000. 1920. Alexander Wacker in the same year French, Russian, and US forces modified the corporate ownership structure, occupied WACKER’s plants in February- switching to a family-owned holding May 1945. The rest of WACKER in company with himself as its first managing Munich and Burghausen was placed director. The agreement establishing this under US administration in July 1945 and company, signed in December 1920, remains almost all of the plants were shut down valid to this day—shares in Wacker Chemie until October, when production slowly SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIAL: AG belong not to individual members of the restarted. Allied control of WACKER Production of polycrystalline silicon in 1965. family, but to the holding company. ceased in March 1953 and the company The company at that time required capital was renamed Wacker-Chemie GmbH on to expand its output and product range so, in 8 April 1953. 1921, it sold 50% of its shares to Hoechst AG, During the 1950s, WACKER began lexander Wacker, born in Heidelberg a limited liability company at that time, via the process of switching from acetylene, in May 1846, laid the foundations an increase in share capital. By regulating the to ethylene, feedstock, for its vinyl plastic for the present-day Wacker Chemie company’s affairs in this manner, Alexander manufacturing operations. The switch was in AG when, on 13 October 1914, he Wacker, who died in April 1922, rendered line with the overall industry trend of shifting entered the Dr. Alexander Wacker, his life’s work secure for the future. from coal to crude oil as the starting material AGesellschaft für elektrochemische Industrie, WACKER was able to manufacture 20 for production. KG company in the trade register kept by the different products at Burghausen by late Dr. Walter Hafner developed the town of Traunstein, Germany. The company 1922, all of which were based on acetylene corresponding synthesis method, directly started to take shape in 1916-17. from carbide. Polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) oxidizing ethylene to acetaldehyde, which In 1916, the company’s headquarters was produced for the first time ever, by became the 2nd WACKER process to were established in Munich, and reacting acetylene with acetic acid, in 1924, cement its place in the history of chemistry. construction work started on the first by the Consortium, based on an invention In 1957, WACKER bought land in the factory building at Burghausen under by chemist Dr. Willy Herrmann. The first Merkenich district of Cologne to build an architect Professor Josef Hoffmann. commercial plant for PVAc, under the ethylene-to-acetaldehyde plant with capacity Production began at Burghausen on 7 VINNAPAS® trade name, began operating for 15,000 m.t./year of acetaldehyde. The December 1916 with the world’s first at Burghausen in 1930. VINNAPAS® plant received ethylene from Esso’s nearby industrial-scale synthesis of acetaldehyde, products became established in the 1930s, refinery complex and it initially shipped its followed by acetic acid. Construction also and PVAc was also used to make polyvinyl product by rail to Burghausen. began in 1916 on the 16-kilometer Alz alcohol under the POLYVIOL® trade name. WACKER agreed with Hoechst and canal. The Alz canal was completed in 1922 Dr. Gerhard Beier discovered vinyl acetate Marathon AG in 1965 to establish a refinery and it is still used by the Alzwerke power ethylene copolymers in 1960. at Burghausen. The Marathon refinery station to generate electricity. The first experimental work began in started operating in 1968 and the site’s steam In January 1917, the company started 1929 on the polymerization of vinyl chloride, cracker, today operated by Austria’s OMV, up the world’s first full-scale production which was obtained by adding hydrogen supplies the WACKER Burghausen site plant for synthetic acetone. Based on the chloride to acetylene. The company applied with ethylene. The last carbide furnace at 1st WACKER Process, the plant made in 1935 for a patent for the suspension Burghausen closed down in 1969. acetone via acetaldehyde and acetic acid. polymerization method for polyvinyl Meanwhile, WACKER had hired The first garlanded railcar carrying 15 chloride (PVC). Dr. Herbert Berg and Dr. Siegfried Nitzsche, a chemist from OCTOBER 2014 An IHS Chemical Week Special Publication www.chemweek.com LANDMARK: Huge carbide storage silo at WACKER’s Burghausen plant in 1954. SQUEEZING OUT SILICONES: Output soared in the 1960s. FIRST STEPS: Oxygen production plant at WACKER’s Burghausen site in 1916. > operations at Jena, eastern Germany, in 1947 and he by year-end making C h e m i t r o n i c began research work in August that year hyperpure silicon merging with on silanes and silicones. It was the first using the Siemens Siltronic, and step toward WACKER becoming one of process, establishing the polysilicon the world’s top silicone providers and a WACKER as DuPont’s business becoming technological leader in the field of silicon only rival in that field. part of WACKER. chemistry. Nitzsche’s team synthesized WACKER sold just 530 Meanwhile, the com- silanes in 1949 using the already developed kg of polysilicon in 1959, but the pany’s hyperpure polysilicon Mueller-Rochow process. The first silicone business expanded rapidly with the com- became of interest to the photovoltaic test plant started operating at Burghausen puter industry and the company founded industry and in 2000, the group sold in 1950 and the first silicone products Wacker Chemitronic GmbH as a wholly its first 1,000 m.t. of solar silicon. such as fluids and resins were marketed. owned subsidiary in 1968. The business, Demand for solar-grade polysilicon WACKER established its first silicone based in Burghausen, was the forerunner surged and WACKER launched the big- department in early 1953, and output of today’s Munich-based Siltronic AG gest investment plan in its history, spending reached 2,800 m.t. by 1964. WACKER semiconductor business. about €500 million in 2010 to expand expanded silicones capacity rapidly during WACKER constructed in 1969 the the main plant at Burghausen by 10,000 the 1960s in response to burgeoning first two full-scale plants at Burghausen m.t./year. This was followed by an addi- demand, starting up an additional plant for distilling the trichlorosilane precursor tional €900-million investment to begin at Burghausen in 1969 with initial silane and for producing polycrystalline silicon. polysilicon production at the Nünchritz site. capacity of 24,000 m.t./year and that same This hyperpure polysilicon was used to pull WACKER had acquired the Nünchritz year taking a 33.3% stake in Stauffer- monocrystalline silicon rods, which were silicone plant in the state of Saxony, eastern Wacker Silicones Corp. at Adrian, USA. processed into silicon wafers. Germany, in 1998, after German reunifica- WACKER became sole owner of the Chemitronic succeeded for the first time tion, for its silicones division. operation in 1987. In 1965, the company in 1973 in growing rods of hyperpure poly- Dr. Peter-Alexander Wacker was established Wacker Chemicals Corp. in crystalline silicon with a diameter of more appointed president and CEO of New York, which functioned initially than 20 centimeters. By the end of the WACKER in 2001. He had been a as a distribution site for major silicone 1970s, every other silicon atom used in the management board member of the com- customers in North America. world’s semiconductor technology had been pany since 1996. Blue Elephant Holding Chief chemist Dr. Eduard Enk had, in supplied by WACKER. GmbH, a holding company established 1953, launched studies on the manufacture Meanwhile, Dr. Max Ivanovits had by Wacker family members, acquired of hyperpure silicon, making him the father developed dispersible polymer powder, the 44% stake in WACKER still held of WACKER’s semiconductor business. based on the extraction of the water from by Sanofi-Aventis—the successor of Production of monocrystalline silicon rods dispersions. Large-scale production began Hoechst—in 2005 and the Wacker fam- began at Burghausen in 1955. Rod diameter in 1957 in one of Burghausen’s first powder ily became 100% owner. Under the lead of was originally 30 millimeters, and the purity towers with a capacity of 1,200 m.t./year. Peter-Alexander Wacker, a 30% stake in was one foreign atom per 10 million silicon WACKER expanded into Asian mar- the company was floated successfully on atoms. Today, purity is 99.99999999%. kets and established Wacker Chemicals the stock exchange through an initial pub- Siemens—the first company inEast Asia Ltd. in Tokyo in 1983. This was lic offering in April 2006. Germany to build transistors—transferred followed in 1984 by the establishment of a In May 2008, Peter-Alexander its licenses to WACKER in 1958 for subsidiary in Singapore.