Conti, INAM partnership pushes circular economies for parts

HANOVER, Germany—Continental A.G. will look to the more agile startup sector for its continuing journey toward sustainability, with the ambitious goal of becoming emissions-free by 2050.

With a focus on the use of recycled rubber and plastics and circular economies for industrial and automotive parts, Continental will partner for a second time with the non-profit Innovation Network for Advance Materials, a Berlin-based collaboration that serves as a conduit for the academic, research and corporate world.

"The start-up scene worldwide is creative, innovative and agile, and exciting ideas from basic research are often emerging at universities," said Daniel Biensfeld, who supervises the competition participants for Continental in the partnership.

"But what they often lack is the process know-how and technical equipment to translate their good ideas into a production environment and develop them into a marketable product."

The partnership is part of the "Continental Challenge," a series of efforts as Conti addresses a future of EVs, renewable fuel technology and recycling methods for both industrial and automotive parts.

"We are extremely excited to run this second innovation challenge with Continental to support them in their effort to make their products future-ready," said Oliver Hasse, managing director at INAM. "Advanced and innovative materials can provide breakthrough solutions to the sustainability challenges of our times—but (they) are currently often considered only secondary to digital innovations."

Launched in mid-October, the endeavor will look to uncover energy-efficient recycling processes for breaking down polymer composites back into their individual components, such as monomers.

Conti said it has expanded its research and development efforts into recycled rubber and plastics since 2020, with specific work in plastics extrusion for industrial applications.

"By collaborating with young start-ups and university institutes, we hope to give a boost to the world of materials, both for the production and recycling of our products," said Ran Escher, responsible for partnership management at Conti. "We are very excited to see what solutions the participating teams come up with in the coming weeks."

The first "challenge" in the Conti-INAM partnership looked for solutions in fluid management in vehicles, including cooling and air-conditioning lines in electric cars. Continental experts are now continuing to work with the four selected finalists on concepts for emission-free mobility.

When Continental A.G. was born 150 years ago, phrases like "circular economy" and "renewable fuel technology" were unheard of, and there was little thought to the finality of raw materials that are mined.

Now companies large and small are addressing sustainability—whether the engine powering the change is customer, market or conscience-driven, or some combination thereof.

"Continental has already made significant progress toward its ambitious goal of becoming the most progressive tire company with regard to ecological and social responsibility by the year 2030," Henry Schniewind, head of external communications for Conti's tire segment, told Rubber News earlier this year. "As an initial step in this direction, our company's zero-emission mobility business is on track to becoming completely carbon-neutral as of 2022.

"This is an important milestone on the road to becoming fully carbon-neutral, and will also help Continental's customers to meet their own decarbonization targets."

Throughout the 21 business units within Continental A.G., company-wide goals include becoming 100-percent carbon-neutral by 2050; 100-percent emissions-free across the industry from nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxides by 2050; achieving a 100-percent circular economy by 2050; and achieving a 100-percent responsible value chain, as far as sourcing raw materials, by 2050.

As a producer of 125 million metric tons of carbon annually throughout its supply chain, the goals are lofty—and entirely possible, Conti said.

Already the tire segment and the ContiTech division (Continental A.G.'s industrial business unit) have seen sustainability successes, with a focus on hydrogen fuel cells, green tire technologies, retreading advancements, climate-friendly thermal management systems and the refurbishment of air spring systems.