German industrial company Evonik is looking to help recycle lithium from electric vehicle batteries and curb demand for crop fertilizer as part of an innovation that is expected to raise 1 billion euros ($998 million) to sales in 10 years to 2025 .
At its innovation conference on Thursday, the specialty chemicals company said it was looking at electric vehicles, food production, and meat analysis as three areas of interest.
According to Evonik, up to 95% of the lithium in lithium-ion batteries used for electric vehicles is not recycled, mainly due to the high cost.
The solution, which is currently being tested at pilot scale, increased efficiency using the electrochemical process with ceramic membranes, resulting in a high-grade lithium battery for use in new cells. Evonik experts are confident that the ceramic film process will be ready to go to market in three to five years, he said.
For agriculture, the company is developing bacteria as biostimulants to provide the nitrogen needed to grow grains like wheat and corn, instead of energy-hungry synthetic fertilizers.
“Our idea was to provide nitrogen from the atmosphere to bacteria. If this idea succeeds, it will make a big contribution to the sustainability ” said Jan Wolter, who leads the farm to the fork division of Evonik’s innovation unit, Creavis.
They plan to launch the formulation of biostimulants marketed between 2025 and 2027. It is also working on technology to determine the origin and quality of chicken products, aiming to Addressing consumer demand for increased transparency to test a multitude of animal welfare factors is cutting-edge, and specifically, Evonik says tests can be made available to customers in the short term to medium term.

Source: ET