Skip to main content

Great international interest in the K+S Brine Challenge

 

Published by
World Fertilizer,

The K+S Brine Challenge, a combined effort to minimise the salt wastewater from tailings piles, is already a great success: a total of 44 ideas from 16 countries were submitted by the deadline.

“The great interest in the Brine Challenge and the high number of submitted ideas exceeded our own expectations," said Mark Roberts, Chief Operating Officer of K+S.

"We are very much looking forward to evaluating the submitted concepts and hope that there are workable ideas among them.”

In the next phase of the Brine Challenge, a jury of external and internal K+S experts will evaluate the submitted proposals. The external jurors include Dr. Bernhard Middendorf, from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Kassel, as well as Prof. Dr. Gerald Ziegenbalg, an expert in salt chemistry, building materials, and geotechnics. Up to three of the best ideas will then be awarded with €20 000 each, in April 2019.

With the launching of the Brine Challenge on September 20, K+S is looking for new innovative approaches, concepts, and impetus in order to significantly reduce the saline wastewater from the tailings piles caused by rain. The company intends to incorporate new approaches into its own processes which have been developed by K+S experts in recent years.

With the new Shaping 2030 corporate strategy, K+S has clearly declared its commitment to sustainability with ambitious objectives, innovation and constructive dialogue with the stakeholders. All of these will ideally be combined in the Brine Challenge.