A 3D rendering: A battery rides on a roller coaster track that represents an infinity sign.

Digital edition 2/2022

Infinite Loop

How recycling lithium speeds up the energy transition - Artificial leather: Lower water consumption, higher quality - Catalysis: Rejuvenation for reactors

Let's go

Water in the desert: The Atacama salt flats in northern Chile with their gigantic saline pools harbor one of the world’s largest lithium deposits

Circularity

A new direction for Lithium recycling

The aim of expanding electric mobility is to help save the climate. Nonetheless, the extraction of the lithium that is needed for this effort is leaving highly visible tracks on the earth. Recycling this raw material, which is crucial for battery production, is mitigating this strain on the environment. High-performance membranes from Evonik could soon be at the center of this trend

Data Mining

The lithium market

The global market for lithium-based batteries is growing faster and faster, making the light metal a sought-after commodity.

Interview

Using natural resources sustainably

René Kleijn (58) is an associate professor in Industrial Ecology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is the author of many scientific publications and helped develop the field Industrial Ecology into a mature scientific discipline in the early 2000s. His research revolves the systematic analysis of sustainability issues using tools like Life Cycle Assessment and Substance and Material Flow Analysis. Kleijn has applied these tools in many different domains including the chemical industry, the energy sector and the recycling industry. In recent years, the focus in his research has been on critical raw materials, resilient and responsible supply chains, circularity, and possible material constraints within the energy transition

Resource Efficiency

Creating sustainable artifical leather

Artificial leather spares animals and can also benefit the environment. Thanks to modern chemistry, both benefits can be achieved without sacrificing quality. Evonik is developing solutions that make the production of leather substitutes even more sustainable

Circularity

Used catalysts for the energy transition

A new technology could help transform the energy industry and contribute to a circular economy. Invented by Porocel—now part of Evonik—this technology reduces waste and greenhouse gas emissions by rejuvenating catalysts for a broad range of oil refining applications. Biofuels might be next.

Foresight

Forever young

In the future, will we be able to add a few months or even years to our lives by simply changing our diets? That may well be possible. The search for effective anti-aging dietary supplements has revealed some promising candidates.

Evonik Country

Singapore: A spectacular city-state

Two hundred years ago, Singapore was a fishing village. Today it’s a thriving metropolis with nearly six millions inhabitants. Strategically located in the heart of Southeast Asia, Singapore lies at the crossroads of the region’s major shipping and aviation routes, and is known as one of the most technologically advanced and greenest cities in the world.

In my Element

"Helium is our ‘draft animal’"

Dr. Ruud Dirksen is a physicist who works at the DWD’s Lindenberg Meteorological Observatory, which has been studying the vertical structure of the atmosphere since 1905. A native of the Netherlands, Dirksen heads the observatory’s on-site radiosonde team