DSM Engineering Materials
About Engineering Materials
DSM Engineering Materials provides high performance specialty materials that address key market needs in automotive and electronics. Besides serving these two main sectors, we offer sustainable engineering materials to specialized industries including water management, health/medical, electrical power distribution, food utensils and multilayer flexible food packaging.
Engineering Materials performance
Volumes were down -6% in DSM Engineering materials, driven by automotive.
Accelerating future growth
In 2020, we launched a strategy focused on accelerating profitable topline growth while improving cost and margin management. This strategy also involves further expanding and diversifying into high-growth, high-value markets including medical and food & water. In medical, we provide advanced materials such as Arnitel® for medical gowns and respiratory tubes, and Arnite® for inhaler device components. With this we also play a crucial role in helping to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. In food & water, we supply advanced materials for components in faucets, kitchen utensils & appliances, food dispensers and food conveyor belts. Our solutions help our customers create better, safer and more sustainable end-products.
The quest for new and more sustainable forms of mobility, including electric vehicles, remains a key driver for our business. During 2020, we continued to shift our portfolio toward higher-value, specialty materials with advanced grades and improved properties. We increased our number of differentiated grades, offering high performance in areas as diverse as heat resistance, thermal conductivity, electromagnetic interference shielding, electrical insulation performance, halogen-free flame retardancy, and hydrolysis resistance.
Investing for the next generation of advanced materials
We also started expanding the capacity of our high-performance materials compounding plant in Evansville (Indiana, USA). The site will offer advanced material solutions, including bio-based thermoplastics, for electrification, metal replacement and weight reduction across multiple industries.
Advancing the circular and bio-based economy
We launched several new solutions in support of reducing carbon footprint and advancing the circular and bio-based economy. In terms of carbon footprint reduction, we will be offering our existing Akulon® PA6 portfolio with a 50% reduction in carbon footprint — the lowest PA6 carbon footprint in the market.
We continued our ambitious sustainability program designed to offer a full portfolio of alternatives that contain at least 25% recycled- and/or bio-based content by 2030. For example, we introduced bio-based Stanyl® PA46 and Arnitel® TPC and bio-based and recycled-based Akulon® PA6 grades. We also engaged with companies in our value chain to explore and further develop bio-based, chemical and mechanical recycling routes.
In alignment with Apple’s Clean Energy Program, we fully transitioned to 100% electricity from renewable resources in the manufacture of our materials for Apple products at the beginning of 2020.
Primary energy is energy that has not yet been subjected to a human engineered conversion process. It is the energy contained in unprocessed fuels.
Final (consumed) energy is the energy that is consumed by end-users. The difference between primary energy and final consumed energy is caused by the conversion process between the two as well as any transmission losses.
