Silicon, a micronutrient, positively influences plant nutrient availability and drought resistance. Current supply chains mostly rely on traditional, non-circular economy sources, causing downsides in terms of ecological sustainability. K+S, a global leader in plant nutrition solutions, has joined forces with VCG.AIfrom RootCamp batch #6, to use the AI-driven value chain generatorplatform from VCG to find new, sustainable sources of silicon for plant nutrition. These silicon sources could be used as a value-adding additive to standard K+S fertilisers.

Industrial operations often produce by-product streams that are costly to manage and difficult to reuse. One example is salty water, or more specifically, aqueous magnesium chloride, a by-product from the production processes at our partner K+S, a leading provider of kalium fertilizer and salt-based products.Today, this byproduct stream represents a significant cost and environmental challenge. But what if it could be transformed into something useful environmentally and economically? That’s exactly what K+S aims to explore, synthesizing aqueous magnesium chloride into high-value nanostructured magnesium hydroxide.