Companies Brown Boveri

Besides the valuable information obtained from the companies cited in Refs. 2 and 3, cooperation with Atochem Elf-Aquitaine (Paris and Pierre-Benite, France), E. I. DuPont de Nemours Company (Wilmington, Delaware, USA) and Ems-Dottikon AG (Dottikon, Switzerland) in the domain of industrial photochemistry, as well as with Asea Brown Boveri AG (Baden, Switzerland) for the technical application of excimer light sources in photochemistry, provided many interesting discussions, new insights in problems of industrial chemistry, and valuable new tools for their solution. 

Brown Bovery Company, Final Report on the Project High Temperature Fuel Cells, NT 332 (1975). 

Brown Boveri Cie and Electrolyzer Corporation achieved a main progress in the mid-1980s with respect to the performance of the alkaline monopolar cells. The first company was able to enlarge the efficiency from 2 to 3.4 kA/m2 with 500 m3/h [13], on the other hand the second company that was able to achieve only 1.74 V reached 134 mA/cm2 at 87% efficiency with nickel-boride materials and NiCo204 anodes (prepared from the freeze-dry technique) [14]. 

Triggered by the DS work of Heilmeier et ah, the pharmaceutical company F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Basel, Switzerland, established a liquid crystal research group in 1969. This was part of Roche s strategy of business diversification at the time. It included collaboration with former Brown, Boveri et Cie company (BBC, now ABB) for jointly developing DS-LCDs for medical electronics equipment. After Wolfgang Helfrich had left RCA in 1970 and joined the Roche liquid crystal group he met his colleague, the experimental physicist Martin Schadt. 

The author is indebted to BBC Brown, Boveri Company Limited, Baden, Switzerland, for giving him the possibility to carry out this work. In particular, its Research Center provided the necessary scientific atmosphere to accomplish this goal. I am also grateful to the Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne for excusing me from my lecture duties during this period. 

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