Research, Development and Innovation

ICL’s research, development, and innovation (RD&I) activities support its growth strategy. The main objective of these activities is to enable new product sales (NPS) and new business creation in the areas of next generation fertilizers, food technology, e-mobility, novel materials and digital agriculture. Developments encompass products, formulations, processes, and new business models. Development activities are implemented in ICL’s RD&I centers around the world and in external labs in universities, research institutes and startups that ICL is collaborating with on several RD&I projects. Thorough analyses of market and customer needs precede strategic research projects. ICL also continuously searches for new uses for ICL’s core minerals and their derivatives.

ICL’s core RD&I activities support each of ICL’s business segments, while longer term strategic projects, digital platforms and technological solutions for farmers and agronomists are coordinated at the corporate level. ICL drives collaborations with companies offering innovative technologies for crop nutrition, and agronomy, with the goal of introducing and integrating new digital solutions into the agricultural world by utilizing, among other things, external knowledge, and platforms.

RD&I Impact Compass

Addressing Climate Change
Advancing Food Security & Sustainable Agriculture
Contributing to Human Health & Wellbeing

ICL’s compass assessment tool offers guidance and support for new projects. The process includes defining and framing the scope of potential and risk, as well as the specific impact goals. The next step is POC, structuring dimensions of impact. From there, the project moves to optimization – setting KPIs and risk assessments. And finally, a pilot and calculating projected impact contribution.

RD&I Main Focus Areas

Next-generation fertilizers: Nutrient use efficiency, biodegradable coatings for controlled release fertilizers; bio stimulants, nutrient sensing technologies; growth enhancers; nitrogen fixation for crops and soil health
Food technology: Texture improvement, stabilization, salt reduction, shelf-life extension, meatless and alternative proteins
E-Mobility and sustainability: Energy storage; metal recycling
Novel materials: Flame retardants; paint and coating additives; biocides; natural cosmetics
Circular economy: Waste to product; recycling; efficiency improvement using ICL’s minerals and chemistries
Industry 4.0: IoT (Internet of Things) in manufacturing, safety and environment; machine learning and artificial intelligence for manufacturing optimization and product development
Agro digital platform: ICL is in the process of developing an open agro digital platform that integrates multiple precision-ag technologies to enable professionals to collaborate and innovate faster and better

Innovation in addressing Climate Change

Reducing emissions
Reducing waste
Water savings
Increasing use of renewable energy
Making use of materials sourced sustainably
Contributing to more sustainable ICL products

Advancing Food Security & Sustainable Agriculture

Increasing yields above current market threshold
Increasing access to food i.e. certain markets, populations, agricultural conditions
Reducing food waste and food loss along the value chain
Contributing to more sustainable agricultural practices
Preserving environment and/or planet biodiversity

Contributing to Human Health & Wellbeing

Minimizing harm or potential harm to human health and wellbeing
Increase control over and improve health and wellbeing
Contributing to savings/reducing costs for end users
Supporting the health and safety of employees along the value chain

RD&I Main Focus Areas

Next Generation Fertilization: nutrient use efficiency, biodegradable coatings; nutrient sensing; growth enhancers; nitrogen fixation, recycled nutrients, and soil health.
Food Technology: texture improvement, stabilization, salt reduction, shelf-life extension, and alternative proteins.
E-mobility: cathode-active materials, electrolytes for batteries, energy storage, hydrogen carriers for fuel cells, lithium battery recycling.
Novel Materials: flame retardants, paints & coatings additives, biocides.
Circular economy: waste to product, recycling, efficiency improvement.
Industry 4.0: IOT in manufacturing, safety, and environment; machine learning and artificial intelligence for manufacturing optimization and product development.
Digital Agriculture

ICL’s digital platforms continue to evolve in our mission to integrate multiple precision-ag technologies (sensors, imagery, and others) with additional agronomical research data from multiple partners.

Digital technology developed by ICL digests data from multiple sources, automatically aggregating, standardizing, and enriching it, thus creating one harmonized data lake with strong AL/ML engines. Those powerful engines enable us to deploy advanced data-driven solutions that drive real time agronomic decision making- increasing crop yields and farmer’s profitability. An increasing number of global partners are joining our revolutionary digital platform, including leading global academic institutions and multinational agriculture companies solidifying this strong digital foundation with high quality and highly actionable agronomic data.

These efforts enable ICL to leverage its digital platform and data driven solutions to create an agro-professional community that enables sharing of information & knowledge between growers and agro-professionals, dealers, retailers, manufacturers of crop inputs, and food producers to extract the most value from agriculture.

9.4

By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities.

RD&I Activities

ICL Industrial Products Segment

Energy storage: Processes for producing raw materials for the energy storage field such as LiBr for solid electrolytes or PCl5 for LiPF6 and more are under development.
Magnesia based products: Development of formulations to fulfill unmet needs in the markets. We recently introduced a new formulation FruitMag™ which serves as a firming agent for post-harvest treatment, to increase the shelf life of citrus fruits. It is a green natural based formulation replacing toxic material used today. We are also marketing a product that enables Aluminum salt free deodorant CareMag® D, which is already being sold by several leading international companies.
Textile recycling: A proprietary Textile recycling process is under advanced process development.
Batteries recycling: Processes for producing precious and valuable metals from Lithium-Ion batteries. Continued development of bromine-based recycling solutions in parallel to market penetration with existing technologies.
Electronic waste recycling: Processes for extracting valuable metals from different types of electronic waste, such as PCB’s and catalytic converters. Continued development of bromine-based recycling solutions parallel to market penetration with existing technologies.
Biocides: Continued development of new materials for water treatment and biofilm prevention in industrial water-cooling systems and pulp & paper plants. Promotion of the Bactesperse® technology for pulp & paper, reverse osmosis membranes & cooling towers.
Bromoquel®, developed for safer handling of bromine and implemented in the plants.
Energy storage: Continued development of bromine-based energy storage solutions for Br-battery companies, using diverse compounds, and commercialization of the new bromine-based electrolyte.
Flame retardants: New fire retardants for the textile market were developed and are in the market development stage.

FruitMag™ serves as a post-harvest treatment to increase the shelf life of citrus fruits. It is a green natural based formulation replacing toxic material used today.

7.1

By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy.

ICL Phosphate Solutions Segment

Environmental protection: Research regarding environmental protection, including developing methods to treat and reduce effluents and applications for Phosphogypsum uses.
Circular economy: Integration of secondary source Phosphate technologies for immediate use in our production facilities in Europe and development of future sources for our fertilizer products, including a technology road map for recycle and recovery of Phosphorous and nitrogen from secondary sources to transform our products into sustainable fertilizers.
LFP: The Specialties R&D group established a team dedicated to the scaling up of licensed technology for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode active material. The team was awarded a United States Department of Energy grant for $197M to establish an LFP Cathode Active Material plant at our St. Louis, USA facility. As part of this grant ICL will expand its R&D activities to next-generation materials in the energy storage solution market.
Asphalt admixture: Introduce a novel Asphalt admixture that improves asphalt stiffening properties, like polyphosphoric acid, but also significantly enhances antistrip properties while having improved freeze point properties and high flash point.
Traditional markets: R&D Specialties supported further growth in the traditional markets and application areas of Meat/Poultry/Seafood (MPS), Dairy, and Bakery’ as well as expansion of our footprint in emerging markets, through sustainable and affordable solutions. New launches include innovative products beyond phosphates for sodium reduction and texture improvement.
Food Tech: The Front-End Innovation team has scouted more than 300 food tech start-ups to identify disruptive technologies for ICL Phosphate Specialties. Following the first investment in Protera Biosciences, ICL Planet Startup Hub invested in Plantible Foods, a start-up creating sustainable and highly functional protein extracted from aquatic plants. The team continues to seek innovation partners to accelerate decarbonization of the food system.
Alternative Proteins: Continued diversification and development of a product portfolio for meat substitutes: The ROVITARIS® fresh wet protein fibers commercially produced at the new facility in St. Louis, USA, are suited for several applications such as tender white meat imitations for chicken and seafood alternatives. Rovitaris® emulsion portfolio has been expanded as a toolbox to target multiple applications such as cold-cuts, sausages, hot dogs, bacon, and pepperoni substitutes. A Center of Excellence for alternative proteins technology has been established to innovate next-generation Rovitaris® and other innovative plant-based solutions including fish-like products. The center will expand ICL’s expertise to serve commercial strategies for global markets better.

ICL Potash Segment

Production efficiency: Efficiency projects to increase potash production and reduce cost per ton at the potash and magnesium plants in Sodom.
Environmental protection: Advancement of research regarding environmental protection, including the development of methods for treating and reducing effluents.
Production capacity:
- Analysis of alternative methods for increasing the production capacity of raw materials at our evaporation ponds.
- Projects focused on floatation and crystallization plants to increase production capacity in ICL Iberia.

ICL Growing Solutions Segment

The Growing Solutions segment promotes innovation and the development of new products and services:
- Controlled-release fertilizers: Development of controlled-release fertilizers with a faster biodegradable coating to meet the regulatory requirements of the EU Fertilizer Product Regulation, expected in July 2026.
- Nutrient efficiency: Development of fertilizers with higher agronomic nutrient efficiency (NUE).
- PK fertilizer: Development of a new PK fertilizer that is fully water soluble.
- Enhance performance: Development of new bio-stimulant products and fertilizers with embedded bio-stimulants to boost their performance.
- Biological bio-stimulants: Development of biological bio-stimulants that stimulate plant growth and support stress conditions.
- Fertilizers development: Development of liquid and fully soluble fertilizers.
- Water efficiency: Development of products that improve water use efficiency.
- Micronutrients & sulfur fertilizer: Improvement of micronutrients solutions and sulfur fertilizer solutions.
- Tailor-made formulations: Development of tailor-made formulations based on customer requirements.

ICL's multi-nutrient fertilizer Polysulphate® is a soluble, easily absorbed, cost-effective answer to crop nutrition.

IMI TAMI

The ICL Chemical Research Center in Israel — IMI TAMI is a world class research institute. Its primary goal is to expand ICL’s business by improving existing chemical production processes and developing new proprietary chemical compounds that offer a commercial advantage. TAMI’s team includes chemists, engineers, and microbiologists. The institute also provides a broad range of services, including research and development, production, testing and a very large selection of analysis options for customers from the chemical, pharmaceutical, food and environmental quality service industries.

As a one-stop-shop facility, TAMI's infrastructure and expertise enable the development of processes from the basic idea to the full industrial process. TAMI offers its expertise in every step of the process: idea validation, lab feasibility, parametrization, process safety analysis, scale-up and waste treatment. Development relies on a state of the art infrastructure containing in-house development tools, and is assisted with cutting edge customized simulation capabilities. TAMI also deals with scaling down processes for troubleshooting or changing and upgrading processes. TAMI works under strict regulation requirements, e.g., ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 GLP, etc. To meet customer requirements, TAMI provides various solutions for raw material recycling and waste treatment and analysis, as well as sophisticated analytical tools to face new challenges.

Research, Development and Innovation

RD&I Impact Compass

RD&I Main Focus Areas

RD&I Main Focus Areas

RD&I Activities

IMI TAMI

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