“We break down the battery into its raw form, so that we can then re-use it again to make new batteries. That way we don’t have to keep mining for new minerals,” explains Lilian Schwich, co-founder and CEO of cylib, a start-up company based spun out of RWTH Aachen University.

In the past, batteries would be thrown into the furnace, burned and then the nickel and cobalt extracted. While that may have been economically viable, it’s environmentally unsustainable. Instead, on the back of 5-6 years of research, cylib proposes a holistic process that involves both mechanical and thermal treatment, with minimal use of chemicals. “Our footprint for recycling material is much lower than mining raw materials, and once we’re done with sorting, discharging, disassembling and recycling the batteries, we get back 90% of the raw materials.”

Deister Electronics is a German family business that develops products for the building security and automation sector, based on their own technology and under the belief that innovation must be the driving force behind their success. “In the early days we were a pure electronics company, sold products, installed them, but then we found out we were too easy to copy. That’s why we had to be innovative,” explains Anatoli Stobbe, CEO and co-founder of Deister.

After asking themselves what the market was missing, the company set out to develop improved digital solutions for locking systems, long-range vehicle identification, smart storage and key managing systems, among others. “Our products are mainly used to secure buildings, and what provides us a common basis for all of them is that everything is based on our own technologies,” explains Nicolas, Head of Business Development and Anatoli’s son.