Copper features across several Umicore business units, including Precious Metals Refining, Metal Deposition Solutions, Automotive Catalysts and Battery Material Solutions. Its conductivity, stability and versatility make it essential to a wide range of high‑tech and industrial applications.
In Metal Deposition Solutions, its thin film products site in Liechtenstein, ultra high‑purity copper (99.995% and above) is used to manufacture sputtering targets. These are used by chipmakers for physical vapor deposition (PVD), a process that deposits thin controlled copper layers onto silicon wafers, creating a highly conductive film.
Under the same Business Unit, its electroplating activities near Stuttgart, copper is used in advanced electroplating processes to fill microscopic features on semiconductor wafers. These electroplated pathways build the complex network of connections inside computer chips.
In Automotive Catalysts, copper is used as an active metal in Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) systems for heavy‑duty diesel engines, including generator sets used in data‑center infrastructures.
Copper also plays an essential role in Precious Metals Refining in Hoboken, Belgium, where it is used as a ‘collector metal’. Because it has high compatibility with precious metals like gold, silver, and platinum group metals, copper ‘catches’ these metals during the smelting process, allowing for high recovery rates from complex waste. Above that we also produce and sell copper cathodes in Hoboken, which are used in the manufacturing of a wide variety of applications such as copper rods, bars and tube.