Publication on scientific conference / Ormecon expecting economical break-even/ "New generation" of Organic Metals announced
"The first market success of Organic Metals sparked the Americans´ interest for this new materials class", explained Dr. Bernhard Wessling (Managing Partner and Senior Scientist of Ormecon) in Montpellier, France. From July 12 - 17, 1998, more than 1000 research scientists from all over the world took part in a conference in order to discuss about conductive organic systems. Ormecon Chemie1 is the world's first company, that, after almost 20 years of basic research, finally managed to introduce Organic Metals2 into the world market, primarily in the areas of corrosion protection and printed circuit boards yet.
The US chemical company DuPont is planning to introduce two new high tech polymers, one of which will be an antistatic Kevlar fiber containing the Organic Metal with highly tensile and flame resistant properties. The pilot scale development has been brought to an end recently and the fiber is currently presented to selected customers for evaluation, as Dr. Che Hsu, head of DuPont's research department, reported at the conference.
Ormecon Chemie was the first company to introduce various new products, based on the patent protected Organic Metal, into the market. "Our customers in the areas corrosion protection and printed circuit board manufacturing could enable us to achieve the ´break-even´ in 1999", Wessling hopes. Only six months ago he expected three more years of losses. Since the establishment of Ormecon in early 1996 significant start-up losses have been financed.
In April 1998 Ormecon completed its patent portfolio by taking over all patents concerning the conductive polymer business of Monsanto Inc. (St. Louis) and Allied Signal (Morristown, NJ). As a result the middle-sized company now owns a large number of key patents and is therefore incontestably dominating the Organic Metal technology.
"Nevertheless we will only be able to realize profits in 2002 because we will first have to finance our growth from 1999 on", which Ormecon intends to do with its own capital resources. "The cooperation with DuPont plays a significant part in this expansion scenario", explains Wessling.
DuPont wants to rely on Ormecon's technology and patents in order to realize its internal plans, while Ormecon intends to benefit from DuPont's chemical manufacturing know-how and world-wide market presence for a faster and broader product marketing.
The result could be an alliance in material science, like the ones that have been successfully practiced in biotechnology: small, flexible and scientifically aimed private companies take over a pioneer part in the research of revolutionary technologies and put their specific know-how and their patents into mutual projects. A similar development could now arise for Organic Metals and related materials. Also recently, DuPont has announced a joint development project with a spin-off from Cambridge University ("CDT") for polymeric light emitting diodes a few months ago (press release available on request).3
In a highly appreciated lecture at the ICSM, presenting new findings about the metallic state in organic systems, Ormecon announced a new generation of Organic Metals. As a first result a conductivity of 300 S/cm (formerly 5 S/cm) could have been presented, but: "We will only introduce the new generation commercially, when we have achieved a conductivity higher than 3000 S/cm, which has now become a realistic aim." Until then Ormecon's corrosion protection and printed circuit board technology will be the financial base for further research activities. Organic Metals will also contribute to other high-tech products such as the latest development made by Philips, a "polymer-chip", that could be used in sensors, as transparent electrodes in polymer LED's or in optoelectronic applications.
(Dr. Bernhard Weßling)
