A philosopher amongst engineers?

by Christian Augustin

The Glatt company is working since quite a while and with considerable success, based on its general process technological know-how, on the development of new material classes, i.e. cellular materials. This development is done in cooperation with numerous partners, such as universities, research institutes and industrial companies. The basic idea is to coat polystyrene spheres with a suspension. Thereafter, the spheres are removed again by low temperature pyrolisis, where the outer shelled formed by the suspension layer is sintered or calcined at higher temperatures, such producing a hollow sphere the characteristics of which can be selected via the sphere diameter, the thickness of the layer, the sintering temperature and other parameters. This technique is usually used to produce hollow spheres made from metal or ceramic powders.
These new materials can be used for a wide range of applications, such as light engineering, for sound absorption or as catalysts. For the marketing of these new products one has to detect suitable applications amongst a huge number of potential customers and field of applications, as potential users have first to be convinced of the benefits. Strategic marketing must hence find and explore the most promising applications. Unfortunately, there are no standard recipes for the latter, such forcing the Glatt company to develop their own new approaches.
During my study of philosophy and history, I did gain knowledge about this problem. Not intending to focus my thesis on literature only, I was quite keen to practically test my theories on innovation and invention research from a philosophical point of view and did discuss this option with Wolfgang Hungerbach from the Glatt company.
Initially the Glatt management was quite sceptical about the potential benefit of employing a philosopher, with untechnical thinking patterns for the market development of the above described new products. However, historians and philosophers have something in common with all other faculties: To handle the complexity of this world. The specific methods may differ, but the basic concept of approach is the same like the one from engineers, chemists or pharmacists. Like the engineer, who has to select a few materials from thousands for the construction of a functioning machine, the chemist has to check numerous options before he finds the final formula.

Fig. 1: New material structures made from differently sized metallic hollow spheres.

An engineer achieves the reduction of complexity by engineering know-how and calculation methods, a pharmacist by means of chemical and biological know-how and methods, a historian by evaluating archives and selection and interpretation of data, and a philosopher by language analysis.
Hence, why should one in some cases not use the specific philosophical and historical methods to solve alien problems of complexity reduction in order to find out if philosophical and historical theories do apply elsewhere, e.g. for the application and development for new cellular materials. The questions is if the function of machines can be described with a philosophical theory about social systems (e.g. Niklas Luhmann theory) or if a marketing problem can not be solved by means of a philosophical approach.

Fig. 2: Hollow spheres, integrated in the car exhaust pipe, can be used as silencers, optionally with catalyst effect. They are temperature resistant and easy to handle.

The aim is always the reduction of complexity. If a marketing problem can not be solved with scientific marketing tools, why not try chemical methods, psychological knowledge or even historical and philosophical theories?
Many other faculties meanwhile use such a holistic approach, often described as trans- or interdisciplinary.
Background of this assumption is, that the history of science can be described as the history of separating disciplines from the philosophy. Initially mathematics did belong to the faculty of philosophy, just like chemistry and psychology. Only with specialization and a massive expansion of knowledge the individual branches had to develop into own faculties. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) did not only teach philosophy at the university of Königsberg, but also law, mathematics, physics and biology. Quite an impossible thought today. How strongly natural scientists understood themselves as philosophers is also demonstrated by Isaac Newton (1643-1727) by his trendsetting publication ”Phílosophiae naturalis principia mathematica” in 1686.
Today, philosophy is not too far away from the thinking strategies of other disciplines and can contribute ideas, methods and theories collected during centuries, for the manifold explanation of this world, be it mathematically, biologically, chemically, phenomenologically, ontologically, historical-genetically etc., to its previous sections, such reflecting the latter.
For my thesis I will systematically explore, if and to which extent philosophical and historical theories can be used for process and product innovation and will practically test them during the application tests for cellular materials (i.e. hollow spheres) of the Glatt company. Wolfgang Hungerbach will support my work and introduce me to the marketing strategies of the company, to assist my effort to produce with my thesis a quantifiable value for Glatt.
First projects have been initiated, such as contacts to the technical universities of Dresden, Kaiserslautern and Karlsruhe, via the alumni network of the ”Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes”, which have already lead to a diploma work and a cooperation with a major machine building company.
Presently, we are evaluating with our partners, which projects will be the most promising. Again, this has to be chosen from a large number of potential projects. Furthermore, I will work with an innovative Dresden group (please see http://www.innozellmet.de) to detect further applications for hollow spheres, i.e. as sound attenuators for small combustion motors, as equipment components or as light weight construction material, e.g. in combination with epoxy resins.

Our cooperation partners .

Most likely, the heterogeneous catalysis will be the biggest and most promising market for us, as environmental technology is gaining global importance. The ever increasing demand for energy and the uncertainties on the oil market will lead to potential shortages, such motivating the global players to look out for alternatives to the also politically unpredictable oil supply. One option would be to not produce petrol and plastics from oil, but from natural gas, oil sand or coal. All relevant processes will necessitate the use of efficient and low price catalysts and create a potentially huge market opportunity. At present, for large scale applications 6000 different catalysts are imperatively used. Market estimations are running up to 10-15 billion Euro.
Tightening international regulatory issues will further boost the use of catalyst for all kind of chemical processes and enhance the use of innovative technologies to reduce the cost for the usually quite expensive catalysts.
Hollow spheres ideally qualify for this purpose, at they allow to minimize the content of catalysts to the mere quantity required for the chemical reaction.
For expensive metals hollow spheres present an economical alternative to solid spheres or layers on inert nuclei. Hollow spheres can be pneumatically filled into large reactors, due to their ideal shape and low friability, sometimes leading to significantly extended operation times.
All presently available results and cooperations with reputed research institutes are very promising. For this year we are already expecting first contract manufacturing orders from catalyst producing companies.

Fig. 3: Solid catalyst sphere Left: Unused catalyst Right: Used catalyst. The photo shows clearly, that only the outer darker shell has been reactive. The yellow core was not used. Consequently, a hollow sphere saves material and can save cost and increase reactivity due to the possibility to ”engineer” the surface layer.

		Christian Augustin Borne 1981, is a Ph.D. student working with the Glatt company. He has already won several prestigious national awards and focuses his work on theory and history of science and innovation and invention research. christian.augustin@glatt.com