Umicore N.V., known as ''Union Minière'' before 2001, is a Belgian-French multinational materials technology company headquartered in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, Belgium. It was formed in 1989 by the

merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of a company, business organization, or one of their operating units is transferred to or consolidated with another entity. They may happen through direct absorpt ...

of four companies in the

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

and

smelting Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron-making, iron, copper extraction, copper ...

industries, including the Union Minière known before 1968 as

Union Minière du Haut Katanga Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Unio ...

. It has since reshaped itself into a more

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

-focused business encompassing such areas as the refining and recycling of

precious metal Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high Value (economics), economic value. Precious metals, particularly the noble metals, are more corrosion resistant and less reactivity (chemistry), chemically reac ...

s and the manufacture of specialised products from precious metals, cobalt,

germanium Germanium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white and similar in appearance to silicon. It is a metalloid or a nonmetal in the carbon group that is chemically ...

zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...

, and other metals. The company has been a component of Belgium's benchmark BEL20

stock market index In finance, a stock index, or stock market index, is an Index (economics), index that measures the performance of a stock market, or of a subset of a stock market. It helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calcul ...

since its 1991 inception.

History

Colonial origins

The main thread running through much of Umicore's history is the ''

Union Minière du Haut-Katanga The ''Union Minière du Haut-Katanga'' (French language, French; literally "Mining Union of Upper-Katanga") was a Belgium, Belgian mining company (with minority British share) that controlled and operated the mining industry in the copperbelt re ...

'' (UMHK), a company incorporated in 1906 to exploit the vast

natural resource Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value. ...

s of the

Congo Free State The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo (), was a large Sovereign state, state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by Leopold II of Belgium, King Leopold II, the const ...

, later the

Belgian Congo The Belgian Congo (, ; ) was a Belgian colonial empire, Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960 and became the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Repu ...

and now the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

. Initially, the UMHK concentrated on mining the state's extensive

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

deposits, before diversifying into

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. ...

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

(in which it at one point held a near-monopoly in global supply) and other precious metals. The company also constructed

casting Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or ...

and smelting facilities, eventually growing to such an extent that it represented around half of all revenues taken in by the Congolese government. In early January 1967, the UMHK was

nationalized Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...

by the regime of President

Mobutu Sese Seko Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga ( ; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997), often shortened to Mobutu Sese Seko or Mobutu and also known by his initials MSS, was a Congolese politician and military officer ...

, and over $800 million of the company's assets were seized by the state.

After Katanga

The firm suddenly found itself without the vast majority of its business (despite later receiving financial compensation for the physical assets seized by Mobutu's regime) but managed to survive: full ownership passed to conglomerate ''

Société Générale de Belgique The ' (, ; often referred to in Belgium simply as "Société Générale" or SGB) was an investment bank and, subsequently, an industrial and financial conglomerate in Belgium between 1822 and 2003. It has been described as the world's first u ...

'', where it was grouped with its other metals and mining interests. As a reflection of its enforced departure from the

Katanga Province Katanga was one of the four large provinces created in the Belgian Congo in 1914. It was one of the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1966 and 2015, when it was split into the Tanganyika Province, Tanganyika, Hau ...

, the new, simplified name ''Union Minière'' was adopted. With its more European focus, Union Minière began to grow its business again through the 1980s, initially largely organically. In 1989 however, Société Générale announced plans to merge Union Minière with three other Belgian metals companies in which it held a significant stake: zinc producer

Vieille Montagne Vieille Montagne () was a zinc mine in Kelmis (La Calamine), a town in Belgium between Liège and Aachen. The mine's name is French for "old mountain" or "old mine", and this is also reflected in its German name, (earlier, ). The mine was once ...

(with a history stretching back to 1805); , which dealt in a wide range of metals including copper, cobalt, and

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

; and Mechim, an

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

firm. The much enlarged company was initially renamed Acec-Union Minière (although the prefix was dropped in 1992) and subsequently set about streamlining its organisational structure, but the global economic downturn of the early-to-mid-1990s hit

profit Profit may refer to: Business and law * Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market * Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit * Profit (real property), a nonpossessory inter ...

s and forced management to implement a major

restructuring Restructuring or Reframing is the corporate management term for the act of reorganizing the legal, ownership, operational, or other structures of a company for the purpose of making it more profitable, or better organized for its present needs. ...

programme in 1995. The three-year plan, implemented under the guidance of recently appointed

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

Karel Vinck, involved the loss of around 25% of Union Minière's workforce and the sale of a number of non-core assets, including a zinc wire operation, French roofing material

retailer Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesal ...

Asturienne and much of the company's exposure to the

diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...

products sector (including ).

Operations

Umicore now "generates the majority of its revenues from clean technologies, such as

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the propert ...

, emission control

catalysts Catalysis () is the increase in reaction rate, rate of a chemical reaction due to an added substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed by the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst ...

, materials for

rechargeable batteries A rechargeable battery, storage battery, or secondary cell (formally a type of energy accumulator), is a type of electrical battery which can be charged, discharged into a load, and recharged many times, as opposed to a disposable or prima ...

, and

photovoltaics Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commerciall ...

". It is ranked as one of The Global 100's "Most Sustainable Companies in the World"; in 2013 it was the top-ranked company and in 2014 it was in ninth place. In 2011, the company was awarded the Fray International Sustainability Award for developing breakthrough technologies for recycling lithium-ion batteries and establishing significant environmental protection initiatives. Mining, originally the lifeblood of the company, no longer plays a direct part in the business: a minority stake in

producer Padaeng Industry, which operates a mine in the north of

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

, was Umicore's last remaining presence in the sector and was sold in April 2008. Umicore's

extraction and refining operations were

divested In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for financial, ethical, or political objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm. A divestment is the opposite of an investment. Divestiture is a ...

in 2005, with its zinc refining operations following in 2007; these now form part of

Aurubis Aurubis AG (formerly Norddeutsche Affinerie AG) is a global supplier of Non-ferrous metal, non-ferrous metals and one of the world's largest copper recyclers. The company processes complex metal concentrates, scrap, organic and inorganic metal-b ...

and

Nyrstar Nyrstar is an international producer of minerals and metals. It was founded in August 2007 and listed on the Euronext Brussels that October. Nyrstar has mining, smelting and other operations located in Europe, the United States and Australia an ...

respectively.

Business divisions

The company divides its operations into four divisions: Energy Materials, Recycling, Catalysis, and Performance Materials.

Energy materials

The Energy Materials division manufactures a range of specialised metal and

metalloid A metalloid is a chemical element which has a preponderance of material property, properties in between, or that are a mixture of, those of metals and Nonmetal (chemistry), nonmetals. The word metalloid comes from the Latin language, Latin ''meta ...

products for industrial use, including fine metal powders for

and hard metal tools, as well as

oxide An oxide () is a chemical compound containing at least one oxygen atom and one other element in its chemical formula. "Oxide" itself is the dianion (anion bearing a net charge of −2) of oxygen, an O2− ion with oxygen in the oxidation st ...

s and

salts In chemistry, a salt or ionic compound is a chemical compound consisting of an assembly of positively charged ions ( cations) and negatively charged ions (anions), which results in a compound with no net electric charge (electrically neutral). ...

of cobalt, lithium and

nickel Nickel is a chemical element; it has symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive, but large pieces are slo ...

for use in batteries,

glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...

and

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcela ...

s. The division also produces and markets products of

, both in compounds for doping optical fibres, semiconductor wafers and infrared optics. The unit is headquartered at the company's plant in Olen near

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

, with production and commercial facilities in a number of countries worldwide.

Recycling

The Recycling business segment covers four main activities: its core business is the

and

refining Refining is the process of purification of a (1) substance or a (2) form. The term is usually used of a natural resource that is almost in a usable form, but which is more useful in its pure form. For instance, most types of natural petroleum w ...

of various precious and other

non-ferrous metals In metallurgy, non-ferrous metals are metals or alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which in most cases at least one is a metal, metallic element, although it is also sometimes used for mixtures of elements; herein only meta ...

, as well as certain

nonmetal In the context of the periodic table, a nonmetal is a chemical element that mostly lacks distinctive metallic properties. They range from colorless gases like hydrogen to shiny crystals like iodine. Physically, they are usually lighter (less ...

s such as

selenium Selenium is a chemical element; it has symbol (chemistry), symbol Se and atomic number 34. It has various physical appearances, including a brick-red powder, a vitreous black solid, and a grey metallic-looking form. It seldom occurs in this elem ...

. Umicore is the world's largest recycler of precious metals. Most of the materials (around two-thirds in terms of refining charges) put through the refining process are

by-product A by-product or byproduct is a secondary product derived from a production process, manufacturing process or chemical reaction; it is not the primary product or service being produced. A by-product can be useful and marketable or it can be cons ...

s from the production of non-ferrous metals, such as

dross Dross is a mass of solid impurities floating on a molten metal or dispersed in the metal, such as in wrought iron. It forms on the surface of low- melting-point metals such as tin, lead, zinc or aluminium or alloys by oxidation of the metal. Fo ...

matte Matte may refer to: Art * paint with a non-glossy finish. See diffuse reflection. * a framing element surrounding a painting or watercolor within the outer frame Film * Matte (filmmaking), filmmaking and video production technology * Matte pai ...

, and

speiss Speisses are alloys of heavy metals like iron, cobalt, nickel and copper White, L.A. "The development of the lead blast furnace at Port Pirie, South Australia", ''Transactions AIME, Vol 188, October 1950, Journal of Metals'', pages 1221–1228. with ...

from the

zinc smelting Zinc smelting is the process of converting zinc concentrates ( ores that contain zinc) into pure zinc. Zinc smelting has historically been more difficult than the smelting of other metals, e.g. iron, because in contrast, zinc has a low boiling poin ...

industry and

anode An anode usually is an electrode of a polarized electrical device through which conventional current enters the device. This contrasts with a cathode, which is usually an electrode of the device through which conventional current leaves the devic ...

sludge built up during

electrolysis In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a technique that uses Direct current, direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. Electrolysis is commercially important as a stage in the separation of c ...

. Other sources of materials used for recycling include

slag The general term slag may be a by-product or co-product of smelting (pyrometallurgical) ores and recycled metals depending on the type of material being produced. Slag is mainly a mixture of metal oxides and silicon dioxide. Broadly, it can be c ...

, spent

fuel cell A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen fuel, hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most bat ...

s, automotive and industrial

and

scrap Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap can have monetary value, especially recover ...

electronic equipment. Production is headquartered at Umicore's precious metals facility in Hoboken near

, with other

plants Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars f ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Battery Recycling Battery recycling is a recycling activity that aims to reduce the number of batteries being disposed as municipal solid waste. Batteries contain a number of heavy metals and toxic chemicals and disposing of them by the same process as regula ...

is a second business unit, focused on the recycling of spent rechargeable batteries from laptops,

mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...

s, and

hybrid electric vehicle A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a type of hybrid vehicle that couples a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) with one or more electric engines into a hybrid vehicle drivetrain, combined propulsion system. The presence of the electri ...

s. The Recycling segment, based in

Hanau Hanau () is a city in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is 25 km east of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main and part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its railway Hanau Hauptbahnhof, station is a ma ...

, Germany, also encompasses a management unit, which sells precious metals in

ingot An ingot is a piece of relatively pure material, usually metal, that is Casting, cast into a shape suitable for further processing. In steelmaking, it is the first step among semi-finished casting products. Ingots usually require a second procedu ...

form to industrial clients and offers access to related financial instruments for hedging purposes.

Catalysis

Umicore's third business segment, its largest in terms of revenue, is composed of two subdivisions, Automotive Catalysts and Precious Metals Chemistry. In automotive catalysts, a field in which the company had begun research in 1968, the company ranks third in global market share behind BASF Catalysts (formerly Engelhard) and

Johnson Matthey Johnson Matthey plc is a British multinational speciality chemicals and sustainable technologies company headquartered in London, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. History Early year ...

. Umicore increased its presence in the sector with the June 2007 purchase of the catalyst division of troubled American

auto parts This is a list of auto parts, which are manufactured components of automobiles. This list reflects both fossil-fueled cars (using internal combustion engines) and electric vehicles; the list is not exhaustive. Many of these parts are also used o ...

manufacturer

Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), was an ancient sacred precinct and the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient Classical antiquity, classical world. The A ...

for $55.6 million. Furthermore, Umicore went on to acquire Haldor Topsøe’s heavy-duty diesel and stationary catalyst businesses in 2017

Performance materials

Performance Materials concentrates on the production of specialised items, chiefly from

precious metals Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high economic value. Precious metals, particularly the noble metals, are more corrosion resistant and less chemically reactive than most elements. They are usual ...

and

. There are five business units: * Building Products (the production of zinc-based items for the

construction Construction are processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and associated activities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing, and design that continues until the a ...

industry) *

Electroplating Electroplating, also known as electrochemical deposition or electrodeposition, is a process for producing a metal coating on a solid substrate through the redox, reduction of cations of that metal by means of a direct current, direct electric cur ...

(organized in the daughter company Allgemeine Gold- und Silberscheideanstalt AG) * Platinum Engineered Materials (

platinum Platinum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a density, dense, malleable, ductility, ductile, highly unreactive, precious metal, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name origina ...

for the production of

gauze Gauze is a thin, translucent Textile, fabric with a wikt:loose, loose open Weaving, weave. In technical terms, "gauze" is a weave structure in which the weft yarns are arranged in pairs and are crossed before and after each Warp (weaving), w ...

s for

fertilizer A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from liming materials or other non-nutrient soil amendments. Man ...

production and

nitrous oxide Nitrous oxide (dinitrogen oxide or dinitrogen monoxide), commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, or factitious air, among others, is a chemical compound, an Nitrogen oxide, oxide of nitrogen with the Chemical formula, formula . At room te ...

abatement) * Technical Materials (including

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which in most cases at least one is a metal, metallic element, although it is also sometimes used for mixtures of elements; herein only metallic alloys are described. Metallic alloys often have prop ...

s for

brazing Brazing is a metal-joining process in which two or more metal items are joined by melting and flowing a filler metal into the joint, with the filler metal having a lower melting point than the adjoining metal. Brazing differs from welding in ...

, metallic contacts for use in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

, various materials and components from

and materials for

hermetic seal A hermetic seal is any type of sealing that makes a given object airtight (preventing the passage of air, oxygen, or other gases). The term originally applied to airtight glass containers but, as technology advanced, it applied to a larger ca ...

ing and electronic packaging) * Zinc Chemicals ( zinc oxides and powders used for corrosion or

ultraviolet Ultraviolet radiation, also known as simply UV, is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths of 10–400 nanometers, shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation is present in sunlight and constitutes about 10% of ...

radiation protection, such as Zano (ZnO)) It also comprises a 40% shareholding in Element Six Abrasives, a joint venture with

De Beers The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pi ...

Financial information

Shareholder structure

On 9 February 2011, five institutions had declared holdings of 3% or greater in Umicore: the company itself in

treasury stock A treasury stock or reacquired stock is stock which is bought back by the issuing company, reducing the amount of outstanding stock on the open market ("open market" including insiders' holdings). Stock repurchases are used as a tax efficien ...

(6.19%), Fidelity International (6.75%),

BlackRock BlackRock, Inc. is an American Multinational corporation, multinational investment company. Founded in 1988, initially as an enterprise risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager ...

(8.33%), Ameriprise Financial (3.00%) and Fidelity Management and Research (3.22%). The implied

free float In the context of stock markets, the public float or free float represents the portion of Share (finance), shares of a corporation that are in the hands of public investors as opposed to locked-in shares held by promoters, company officers, control ...

of the company is 100%.

Sponsorship

The company serves as title sponsor of the , the

Leuven Leuven (, , ), also called Louvain (, , ), is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipalit ...

-based entrant in 2005, 2007 and 2009 editions of the

World Solar Challenge The World Solar Challenge (WSC), named the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge since 2013, is an international event for solar powered cars. The course is over 3,022 Kilometers (1,878 miles) through the Australian outback, from Darwin in ...

, a solar-powered car race through the Australian Outback. The germanium substrates in the car's

solar cell A solar cell, also known as a photovoltaic cell (PV cell), is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by means of the photovoltaic effect.

s were also provided by Umicore. The team finished second in the 2007 race.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Chemical companies of Belgium Companies based in Brussels Companies established in 1989 Metal companies of Belgium Multinational companies headquartered in Belgium Bullion dealers Companies listed on Euronext Brussels