The idea: with the aid of electricity from solar energy and bacteria, valuable raw materials are produced with water and CO2, using photosynthesis as a model. The joint research project of Evonik and Beiersdorf is being funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the amount of around €1 million.
Beiersdorf is a leading provider of innovative, high-quality skin care products and well known brands such as NIVEA, Eucerin, Hansaplast/Elastoplast, and La Prairie. If it succeeds in using CO2 as a source for the raw materials used in its care products, this will reduce the company’s carbon footprint as well as the land used for renewable resources. “The research cooperation fits perfectly with our sustainability agenda, an ambitious program that we are implementing systematically and across all functions. We are pursuing a vision of becoming climate positive, and we want to play a part in closing the carbon cycle,” said dr. May Shana’a, Corporate Senior Vice President R&D at Beiersdorf.
Evonik believes that the research cooperation with skin care specialist Beiersdorf is an opportunity for the specialty chemicals maker to expand the future product portfolio for artificial photosynthesis. It is developing a technology platform needed for this together with Siemens in the Rheticus project funded by the BMBF.
With this research project, Beiersdorf and Evonik are partners in the BMBF’s P2X II project launched in September 2019 as one of the projects of Kopernikus, one of the biggest German research initiatives in the area of the energy transition. A total of 42 partners are involved in the P2X II project alone. The aim is to develop processes that use renewable energy to produce high-quality products.
Image: Evonik
