Company Background / History

Innovation is our tradition – for more than 100 years

Treibacher Industrie AG is a globally successful producer of preliminary products for a great many of industrial applications. With its headquarter in Althofen (AT) and subsidiaries in Toronto (CAN), Shanghai (CN), Tokyo (JP) and Breitungen (GER) as well as a worldwide sales network, Treibacher meets global market requirements in the fields of high performance ceramics, hard metals and energy storage, rare earths and chemicals, environmental catalysts and pharmaceutical chemicals as well as steel and foundry products.

The company, formerly known as Treibacher Chemische Werke, was founded in 1898 by the Austrian inventor, scientist and discoverer Dr. Carl Auer von Welsbach in Althofen/Carinthia. At that time, Auer von Welsbach invented – amongst other things – the flint, which became the very first product of Treibacher, which is still produced nowadays.
As a result of Auer von Welsbach´s spirit of research in the field of rare earths, those elements were henceforward used as raw materials for numerous products. As a pioneer, Treibacher was able to maintain its role as a global player and market leader in many of those fields.

But also, due to continuous innovation, the company was able to similarly succeed in the field of metallurgy. So, today, Treibacher manufactures high quality products like ferrovanadium and ferromolybdenum for the steel and foundry industry; powders for the hard metal industry; high performance materials for ceramic applications as well as fine chemicals for different markets, e.g. pharmaceutical and catalyst industry.

The focus is not only directed to the development of new products – as the slogan „innovation is our tradition“ suggests – but also to the maximum utilization of raw materials, especially of secondary raw materials (residues) and to the consequent optimization of processing costs as well as to the conservation of the environment. Thus, the recycling devision of Treibacher Industrie AG processes depleted metalliferous catalysts from the oil industry and uses the extracted remnants to produce high quality alloys and additives for the steel industry.

In the year 2013, Treibacher Industrie AG expanded its portfolio by the segment of luminescent substances, e.g. for LEDs, diagnostic radiology etc. through the acquisition of the German Leuchtstoffwerke Breitungen.