High-tech
materials in sports: A winning performance
Its name is doubly true: the new soccer ball from adidas is
called +Teamgeist™ – “Team Spirit” –
and it’s designed to help the best eleven win the World
Cup. Winning a game is of course a team effort – and so
was the development of a ball like this one, as global key account
manager Dr. Thorsten Bestvater and Thomas Michaelis of Bayer
MaterialScience can readily testify. Bayer Leverkusen soccer
player Bernd Schneider is positive in his assessment: “This
ball is a boon to everyone on the team.”
Global
key account manager Dr. Thorsten Bestvater (left) and
project manager
Thomas Michaelis of Bayer MaterialScience provide advice
and support to customers.
Bernd Schneider is regarded as an excellent technician who often
sets his teammates up with the crucial pass that leads to a
goal. Indeed, the midfielder from Bayer Leverkusen has himself
put the ball in the net more than 60 times in German Bundesliga
matches since 1998 – helped
by high-tech materials from Bayer MaterialScience. “For
me to play accurately, both the ball and my shoes have to be
perfect,” says the 32-year-old professional. Bayer customer
adidas meets these needs both with the new World Cup ball and
with its Predator™ soccer shoes.
“Our materials give the ball optimum flight and make the
shoes extremely lightweight,” explain Dr. Thorsten Bestvater
and Thomas Michaelis of Bayer MaterialScience, where the development
and manufacture of new products are based on innovative capability
and close cooperation
with customers.
There’s a good reason why professional soccer players
like Bernd Schneider trust products from Bayer MaterialScience:
modern synthetic materials such as polyurethane-based textile
coatings and thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) give both high-tech
balls and soccer shoes ideal properties and make them virtually
indestructible even under the extreme conditions of competitive
sports.
Throughout the world, sporting goods manufacturers utilize the
outstanding properties of Bayer materials – for example
TPU, polyurethane foam and coating raw materials for inline
skates, snowboards and sports shoes, or Makrolon® polycarbonate
for visors and goggles.
German
soccer international Bernd Schneider: “With the
new World Cup ball I can put in an accurate cross.”
Outside of sports, too, there is practically no end to the potential
applications for Bayer MaterialScience products in the auto
industry, electrical engineering and electronics, the construction
sector, household appliances and leisure goods. In fact, the
company’s high-tech materials are found in nearly all
areas of everyday life.
Products
from Bayer MaterialScience give modern soccer shoes precision
and shooting strength (top). The raw materials are supplied
in the form of flat film or granules (below).
Each material plays its part in the success story of Bayer MaterialScience.
For example, the highly durable Makrolon® is the material
of choice for CDs and DVDs. To date more than 220 billion CDs
have been produced from this polycarbonate.
The marketing of tried-and-true products with further enhanced
properties is one key factor in this company’s success.
Another is the development of new materials and applications:
Bayer MaterialScience invests roughly EUR 250 million a year
in research and development, with products launched within the
past five years currently accounting for some 20 percent of
sales.
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