Chemistry in Essen

Chemistry is one of the most high-profile clusters in the state of North Rhine Westphalia. The City of Essen also offers a wide variety of skills in the field of chemistry. These range from corporate groups to medium-sized companies and small businesses. For this reason the chemicals business is an important division of Evonik Industries AG. The firm Evonik Goldschmidt GmbH has been operating its production, research and development in Essen for more than 120 years now. Furthermore, around 90 companies from the chemical sector have their headquarters in Essen. They are involved in the production, development or distribution of chemical products or as plant constructors, suppliers and service providers. Essen-based companies from this field operate throughout the world.   Basic materials, surfaces and metallic materials, building materials, paints and varnishes chemistry, cleaning and care products, adhesives, polymer chemistry, speciality chemicals, plant construction, commerce, engineering services and supply are the business segments here.  

With its headquarters in Essen, Evonik Industries AG has 40,000 employees worldwide. Besides the two mainstays of energy and real estate, the chemicals division is the largest chemicals company in the Ruhr metropolis, where it employs approximately 9,000 people. The enterprise is one of the world's largest producers of speciality chemicals. There are plans to further expand the chemicals division.

Founded in 1989, the Essen site, with around 1,400 employees, six manufacturing plants, its own combined heat and power station and a high-bay warehouse is the largest industrial manufacturing plant in the city.

The company belongs to the Consumer Specialties Division of Evonik, a leading world-wide provider of raw materials and active ingredients for the cosmetics industry, washing and cleaning agents, additives and processing auxiliaries for industrial applications, as well as stabilisers for polyurethane foams. The company also has special skills in the fields of silicone, fat and biochemistry.

Essen is the location of the headquarters, the most important production facilities and the research and development centre of the division with around 280 researchers and application engineers. The research skills at the Essen site have been further strengthened in the past few years. As a result, in products that are less than five years old generating a high share of the turnover.

Ferrostaal AG is an international engineering company with headquarters in Essen which employs around 4,200 people worldwide at over 60 locations.

In the "Projects” Division that includes the subdivisions of Solar, Biofuels, Petrochemical and Industrial Projects, Ferrostaal builds and finances industrial plants as a general contractor. The "Petrochemical” Division erects plants for products such as methanol and fertilisers. In the past few years it has constructed five methanol plants and two ammonia plants in Trinidad, including the world's largest methanol plant with an annual capacity of 1.9 million tonnes.

Olefins and refinery products also form part of the division’s portfolio.

The entire range of scientific research is carried out in the Chemistry Department: the classic chemistry subjects of inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry and technical chemistry are supplemented by analytical chemistry, the Biofilm Centre, the didactics of chemistry and theoretical chemistry. The Chairs in Technical Chemistry in particular are extremely interesting for the application-oriented cooperations with SMEs. In the 7th EU framework research programme, approaches to the promotion of cooperations between companies and science are presented.

Every year over 35 young scientists receive their doctorate here. In addition to 1,300 students, there are more than 180 Ph.D. students enrolled in the Chemistry Department.

Since 2003 more than 40 working groups have joined the ZMB. The main points of focus are the four research programmes "Oncology", "Virology, Infectious Diseases and Transplantation", "Genetic Engineering, Developmental, Molecular and Cell Biology” and "Biomolecular Structure and Function".

The SSC is the contact point at the University of Duisburg-Essen for all aspects of collaboration between companies and scientists, as well as university foundations.

Due to the scope and particular quality of the framework conditions, Evonik Goldschmidt GmbH holds a special position with respect to training. Currently the company's own training centre is teaching 100 apprentices their future professions in their own teaching laboratories, teaching pilot plant and teaching workshops.

The "Chemical Atlas of the Ruhr Area ", an online portal with a cartographic database, provides a quick overview of the locations, skills and products of chemistry and related companies. Essen is integrated into the Rhine-Ruhr chemical location, which is one of the most important in Germany.

The EWG – Essener Wirtschaftsförderungsgesellschaft mbH (Essen Economic Development Agency) supports the competitions initiated by the state as part of the North Rhine Westphalia cluster formation, including those for chemistry and plastics (Chek.NRW). At the same time the Essen Economic Development Agency maintains close contact with regional and national networks and cluster managements in order to support particularly small and medium-size companies with information.