Innovation
Through state-of-the-art processes, and working in partnership with our customers, we are realizing the full potential of carbon black. Evolving together is therefore a key enabler to achieving cutting-edge sustainable products.
Our culture of innovation
Innovation is embedded throughout our business, motivating us as we strive for continuous improvement. We leverage partnerships and explore new design processes to constantly expand the potential of our product. Our customers say that our carbon black identification technology is the best on the market, and we gladly share our process with them.
Cutting-edge facilities support cutting-edge thinking
To ensure we remain at the cutting edge of our industry, we depend on scientists and engineers who are dedicated to taking us forward. We therefore provide our scientists with state-of-the-art research facilities, bringing together our Research and Development (R&D) and Manufacturing teams from around the world. Our two principal R&D Centers in Taloja (Maharashtra, India) and Marietta (Georgia, USA) are supported by satellite laboratories around the world. We recognize that innovative thinking supports sustainability, helping us achieve our goals and share progress along the way. We aim to further develop our products to advance circularity.
Read about our culture of innovation (PDF, 13.7 MB) in our report.
Inviting innovation from everyone
In 2022, Birla Carbon launched a new Project Management tool via our Hype platform to move ideas towards implementation. This was complemented by the release of an Idea Marketplace where employees can show interest in taking part in projects or leading teams.
In addition to idea capture, the Innovation Ambassador network is a key driver of innovation culture across the organization. Formed in 2020, the group includes 21 individuals from diverse functional areas, locations, and genders.
A continuation of our innovation journey, the Birla International Innovation Gathering (BiiG) concept emerged from the call to “Share the Idea”. This event recognizes innovators across the organization, helps us future-focus today’s perspectives, and inspires us to strive for continual growth.
Sharing the strength – our partnerships
Through establishing partnerships, with a view to long-term positive impact, we utilize both expert knowledge and industry experience to create sustainable products for our customers.
Developing sustainable nanomaterials
Together, we are advancing the development of nanomaterials by producing stronger, more sustainable materials for a variety of uses, such as high-performance tires and next-generation batteries. We recently transitioned to an exclusive license agreement with CHASM to support the manufacture, distribution and sale of hybrid nanomaterials.
Boosting sustainability for the tire and rubber goods markets
In 2021, together with GranBio Technologies, we were awarded $730,000 in grants to scale up nanocellulose dispersion composite (NDC™) masterbatch for the tire and rubber goods markets. Designed to address growing sustainability demands by incorporating bio-derived nanocellulose into commercial rubber compounds, the masterbatch provides improved tire rolling resistance and improved vehicle fuel economy. Through our partnership, we will increase production of NDC™ at GranBio’s biorefinery ready for on-road tire trials by global partners.
Supporting start-ups
Looking for ways to reduce our environmental footprint, we are partnering with several US Department of Energy grant winners, to capture and convert our CO2 emissions into carbon nanomaterials, which are then reincorporated into our products.
We reinvested 3.8% profit in research and development in FY2022.
Launching new carbon blacks to advance electric vehicles
Launching new carbon blacks to advance electric vehicles:
Energy efficiency
Power density
Charging speed
These batteries could be used in the next generation of electric vehicles, in grid storage systems to improve the efficiency of wind farms or for home energy storage. Birla Carbon’s participation at The Battery Show in Michigan 2021 affirmed our entry into the Energy Systems market. We presented a portfolio of conductive carbon solutions and launched our Conductex i™ and Conductex e™ series of products for lithium ion and lead acid battery applications. These high-performance batteries can unlock 5-15% energy savings, enabled by highly engineered conductive carbon black.
By expanding in markets such as batteries, tire materials, inks and plastics, we can increase value for both our business and our customers.
