LCY Chemical opened a new R&D Center in Kaohsiung City’s Nanzih District, as a base for a circular economy, with an emphasis on cultivating talent and empowering teams to push their research into real-world application.

LCY Chemical keeps focusing on scientific innovations that surprise the world. The secret behind these achievements is top-tier R&D talents, based at the R&D Center in Nanzih, Kaohsiung. The R&D team puts the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship into practice, through creative ideas that incorporate international megatrends, putting products on the market and getting patent applications. This generates competitiveness and allows LCY Chemical to gain the attention of the world.

The world’s most influential technology giants, such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Samsung, all have one advantage in common—powerful innovation that dwarfs their competitors. In Taiwan, LCY Chemical, a powerhouse of the chemical industry, has proved its prowess to the world with Taiwan’s first and only EIPA (electronic-grade isopropyl alcohol) recycling technology. The driving force behind this innovative strength is LCY’s R&D Center in Nanzih. Positioned as a “base for circular innovation,” the R&D center boasts a first-rank international team, with elite master’s and PhD graduates from top academic communities globally in Taiwan, Canada, Hong Kong, and Japan, who collaborate to launch world-leading products.

Innovation Platform Encourages Creativity: From Zero to New Product

“Right now about 30 to 40 percent of our projects originate from our Innovation Platform,” LCY Chemical Corp. Chief Executive Officer Vincent Liu says. Each quarter, five to six research teams participate in the platform and pitch their ideas. If the teams come up with ideas that are technically feasible and marketable, LCY Chemical will apply for patents, develop the ideas as trade secrets, and offer bonuses to reward the teams for their exceptional creativity.

Materials Laboratory Researcher Shih-Wei Lee has participated in the Innovation Platform, and shares his on-the-ground experiences at work: “CPI (Colorless Polyimide) is currently being developed to give screens a higher resolution. To ensure quality of product, I personally tried over 100 formula combinations. The entire team tried about 500 combinations. The whole process involves constant trial, troubleshooting, and optimization.” Through continual trial and implementation from ideation to commercialization, the process is fraught with challenges, but also filled with innovation and fun!

Many of LCY’s business opportunities come from the groundbreaking ideas on its Innovation Platform.

Originally from Hong Kong, Chemicals Laboratory Researcher Ken Au-Yeung has also pitched his ideas on the Innovation Platform. “I combined the company’s polypropylene and modified cellulose to create a new material. This material makes clothes lighter, warmer, and waterproof. The new material is also recyclable and reusable.” He adds, colleagues pointed out other materials that could also make clothes lighter and warmer, which inspired Au-Yeung to imagine another possibility.

Au-Yeung stresses that LCY's R&D team comprises scientists from top academic communities, including Mines Paris Tech, Hokkaido University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, National Taiwan University, Academia Sinica, and the Industrial Technology Research Institute. Whenever he faces challenges, he can always ask for help from his colleagues. By exchanging their knowledge, the whole R&D team becomes more innovative.

LCY Chemical hosts a diversity of international talents, to stimulate revolutionary breakthroughs through creative brainstorming.

A Focus on Industry Trends, Providing Partners with Green Solutions

At the LCY R&D Center, research is also closely on track with global developments. “We’re concentrating on international megatrends, including Circular Economy, Smart Living, and Energy Conservation through lightweight materials,” says Vincent Liu. LCY’s three core research topics are closely related to human civilization in daily life, while keeping pace with the evolving trends of the international market. A focus on carbon reduction solutions in such key areas as high-end semiconductor manufacturing, consumer electronics, household goods, and the automotive industry has generated numerous successful cases.

The electronic-grade isopropyl alcohol (EIPA) supplied by LCY is the industry’s first application of a dual circular economy model. Through innovative technology, the recovery of the isopropyl alcohol from waste liquid generated in the process can help the semiconductor industry to reduce carbon emissions and waste. Chiung-Yao Huang, an analysis laboratory researcher at the LCY R&D Center, says, “Our work is very meaningful. Our team keeps pushing EIPA to higher and higher levels of quality and it can help our customer to solve waste problems from wafer manufacturing process. Every researcher and engineer is an important driving force behind the success of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry.” She adds that members of her task force come from across the company, including the business department, R&D, and manufacturing. This interdisciplinary collaboration among experts across departments can stimulate an array of perspectives, accelerating research to the stage of real-world implementation. It also helps semiconductor customers realize the vision of resource sustainability.

The R&D Center is incubating not just technology, but also business and, most importantly, talent.

LCY is injecting dynamic energy into innovative R&D. By ramping up investment in R&D equipment and facilities, it is transforming the Nanzih R&D Center into a world-class base of innovation, while also giving greater depth to its cultivation of R&D talents. “We’re building up the market acumen of our researchers,” Vincent Liu asserts. “Our R&D Center isn’t just incubating technology. It’s incubating business, and most importantly, it’s incubating talent.” This base for innovation in circular materials is the core of LCY’s competitiveness, and it will keep forging ahead in providing solutions for sustainability.

This base for innovation in circular materials is the growth engine of LCY, providing solutions for sustainability.