Frankurt Welcomed Visitors to a World of Innovation :ACHEMA 2015

With 3,813 exhibitors and about 133,000 m² exhibition space ACHEMA opened its doors from 15-19 June in Frankfurt. For the first time, the majority – 53,9 % of the exhibitors –  had come from abroad. The biggest groups behind Germany came from China and Italy. Overall the organisers were expecting about 167,000 participants from more than 100 countries at the “global summit of innovations” where exhibitors from 56 countries presented new products and technologies for the chemical, pharma and food industry. Innovation was the leading tune of the opening day.

The keynote speech was presented by 2014 Nobel Prize Winner and successful founder, Prof. Dr. Stefan Hell, who described the fluorescence microscopy technique he developed and for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Another highlight of the Opening Session was the presentation of the first Achema Start-Upward for young companies. Volterion, 4GENE and Ionera were the three talented winners of this new award, having convinced the experts on the jury from both a technological and an economic point of view. Besides the cash prize of 10,000 euros, the winners – together with the other finalists – had the opportunity to present themselves all week to an international audience of professionals and to forge vital business contacts.

In the Energy category, Volterion’s concept of a new storage technology for private homes was the outright winner. Volterion produces and markets small-scale vanadium redox flow batteries (2 kW - 10 kWh) for decentralized storage of renewable energy sources (solar) for use in private homes. Dr. Michael Brandkamp, Executive Director of High-Tech Gründerfonds, was particularly impressed by the advanced stage of development and high market relevance of the technology.

With Flavor-on-Demand, 4GENE was unrivalled in the Industrial Biotechnology section. 4GENE develops, produces and markets natural, biotechnologically engineered, activatable aroma glycosides. Hans-Peter Ilgner, member of the Executive Board of Business Angels FrankfurtRheinMain, underscored the creativity of the approach from which consumers may well soon reap the benefit.

Ionera, winner in the Measuring Technology/Analytics category, has developed a nanopore-supported platform technology enabling single-molecule through to DNA analysis. Prof. Dr. Rainer Diercks, Chairman of DECHEMA e.V., highlighted the tremendous diversity and potential of this method.

The winning teams together with the finalists of all three categories were on hand to provide information about their concepts throughout the week at ACHEMA.

Conferred in recognition of outstanding ideas of young companies in the fields of chemistry, process engineering and biotechnology, the Start-Up Award is to support these companies in opening up a new business area and thus to respond to the pressing challenges of the future. A prerequisite for participation is that natural persons should be named as the potential founders and the start-up should be based in Germany.

The ACHEMA Start-Up Award is jointly offered by DECHEMA Gesellschaft für Chemische Technik und Biotechnologie e.V., DECHEMA Ausstellungs-GmbH, Business Angels FrankfurtRheinMain e.V., and High-Tech Gründerfonds. The following institutions support the contest: Verband der chemischen Industrie e.V., Verein deutscher Ingenieure e.V., Arbeitsgemeinschaft industrieller Forschungsvereinigungen, and Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker. Sponsors include ALTANA and Air Liquide.

Jürgen Nowicki, Chairman of the ACHEMA Committee, said during the opening press conference: “Significantly increased internationality and slightly increased exhibitor numbers give prove to the fact that ACHEMA is on track and has once more confirmed, or even strengthened its position as the world’s leading trade show for the process industries.”

Prof. Dr. Rainer Diercks, Chairman of the Board of DECHEMA e.V., named ACHEMA “the global summit of innovation”. Being interdisciplinary and highly international, according to him ACHEMA is a “melting pot of ideas”. Diercks also pointed out that the contribution of chemistry and process engineering to the solution of global challenges such as water supply, food or health is not well-known to the general public. ACHEMA therefore aims increasingly to enter into a dialogue with the public.