Opportunities and investment

The company regards nanotechnology as a key technology of considerable commercial importance. It believes this new technology opens up enormous opportunities to improve the production and storage of energy, and in areas such as surface refinement, mobile electronics, catalysts that increase the efficiency of production processes and minimize the use of resources, as well as in cosmetics and abrasion-resistant ceramic components.

Economic significance

Worldwide, nanotechnology is regarded as a pacemaker and interface technology impacting almost all fields of science and technology. Its economic significance is already huge. A variety of studies have calculated that it has market potential of up to US$ 2,500 billion by 2015. Nanotechnology is a major opportunity for German industry: Around 500 of the approximately 1,000 European companies working with nanotechnology are based in Germany.

Creating jobs

A report published by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) in 2009 states that more than 60,000 jobs in Germany are directly or indirectly dependent on nanotechnology. By 2015, the manufacture of products based on nanotechnology could account for 10 percent of jobs in the country.

Cross-section of a battery cell

Working on tomorrow's energy storage technology

Evonik’s flexible ceramic membrane SEPARION® is an outstanding example of an innovation that would not have been possible without nanotechnology. This product improves the safety, performance and lifetime of large-scale lithium-ion batteries. At the end of 2008 Evonik and Daimler set up a strategic alliance to drive forward the development and production of lithium-ion battery cells and systems for the automotive industry. Around 200 jobs have been created since 2007 at Li-Tec, a joint venture of Daimler and Evonik which produces battery cells, and Litarion, a wholly owned subsidiary of Evonik that supplies the anodes and cathodes. Another 600 jobs should be created at these companies in the coming years.