Agro

ICL Innovation seeks innovative early stage technologies, novel materials and cost-effective production processes to be incorporated by ICL Fertilizers into their products. 

We are currently looking for: 

 

ICL Innovation is seeking a method to measure plant nutrients' levels, mainly Potassium, Nitrogen and Phosphorous, in crops by remote sensing, preferably on a moving tractor.

 

Possible Approaches:

 Near IR range analysis 

• Potassium-40 radiation detection  
• XRF

What We Are Not Looking For:

• Off-field solutions
• Measurements of nutrients in the soil rather than the plant
• Technologies affected by environmental factors

 Key Success Criteria:

 Method should be accurate and fast enough to provide a timely feedback to a fertilizer delivery system

• Method should focus on plant rather than soil
• Method should be safe

 Background:

 Nutrients levels in plant, in particular N,P and K, are the basis to accurate application of fertilizers. While N is easy to measure, P and K are harder and require wet chemistry methods in order to achieve meaningful results, a process that is usually too long. We are seeking ways to determine the N,P,K levels in the plant as fertilizers are applied. This would result in less waste, and less side effects of lack or over application of fertilizers in fields.

 

ICL Innovation is seeking economical controlled and slow release fertilizers to supplement its current product line.

 

Possible Approaches:

• New porous carriers
• Novel coatings
• Triggered release mechanisms
• Call-response release mechanisms

What We Are Not Looking For:

• Non bio-friendly materials
• Expensive solutions

Key Success Criteria:

• Use materials that are biodegradable
• Comply with relevant regulations
• Fit within farmers' existing methods and equipment
• Economic viability

Background:

ICL Specialty Fertilizers currently consists of six business units, namely; Everris, Fuentes Fertilizantes, F&C,  NovaPeak, NU3, and ZRSFL, and offers the following product lines: Controlled Release Fertilizers (CRF), Slow Release Fertilizers (SRF), Water Soluble Straights, Water Soluble NPK Fertilizers (WSNPK), liquid fertilizers, Growing Media (GM), grass seeds, Plant Protection Products (PPP), various chemicals. We continuously strive to improve our SLF and CRF lines in order to allow a more precise mechanism to deliver the required nutrients to the plant.

ICIN is seeking Bio-stimulants / biofertilizers that promote beneficial aspects of plants such as increased yield, resilience and health and that are effective in real life conditions across soils, climates and over time.

Possible Approaches:

Biofertilizers:

• New Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR)
• Technologies to overcome the difficulty of bacteria surviving in real life conditions

Biostimulants:

• products which affect plant yield or quality positively through the gene expression control

 

What We Are Not Looking For:

• Known Phosphate Solubilizing Micro-organisms (PSM)
• Known Nitrogen Fixing bacteria (NF)
• Micro-organisms proven effective in labs only
• Technologies limited to transgenic species

Key Success Criteria:

• Be effective in actual field conditions
• Be effective in a range of soils
• Be viable economically
• Solver has relevant field data

Background:

ICL Specialty Fertilizers, a business unit of ICL Fertilizers, produces superior-quality, cost-effective specialty fertilizers that help growers achieve higher yields and better quality, in spite of scarce water and limited arable land. Exploring this vast research area of Bio-Stimulants is a natural extension to our efforts to find new ways to contribute to the global need for food.

 

ICL Innovation seeks new fertilizers based on nano technologies

Key Success Criteria:

• Show enhanced performance relative to standard fertilizers
• Compliance with European regulations
• Cost effectiveness 

Background:

ICL Specialty Fertilizers, a business unit of ICL Fertilizers, produces superior-quality, cost-effective specialty fertilizers that help growers achieve higher yields and better quality, in spite of scarce water and limited arable land.

 

ICL Innovation seeks a timed bio-degradation mechanism to be applied on fertilizers encapsulants 

Key Success Criteria:

• Cost effectiveness
• Total disintegration of encapsulate
• Degradation timing within 3 months of target

Background:

ICL Specialty Fertilizers, a business unit of ICL Fertilizers, produces superior-quality, cost-effective specialty fertilizers that help growers achieve higher yields and better quality, in spite of scarce water and limited arable land.

 

ICL Innovation seeks an economical technology to prevent the agglomeration of potassium chloride (KCI) during transport.

Key Success Criteria:

• Cost effectiveness
• Does not interfere with product specificiations
• Agglomeration prevention efficacy

Background:

Agglomeration is mainly caused by exposure to the surrounding air and humidity. Product should address the current way KCI is handled and transported.

ICL Innovation seeks a cost effective technology to remove uranium and cadium from phosphate ore for usage in fertilizers compliant with new regulations

Key Success Criteria:

• Removal to the levels defined by European regulations
• Economic viability

Background:

We are assessing possibilities to remove cadmium and uranium in superphosphates and phosphate rocks to meet environmental regulations.

ICL Innovation seeks an efficient technology to extract phosphates from waste water, to be used mainly in fertilizers.

Key Success Criteria:

• Extraction efficiency
• Economic viability
• Robustness in field conditions

Background:

We are looking for a novel technology to extract phosphates from non-utilized sources of wastes, such as phosphatization residues, waste streams containing phosphates, detergents/builders, process waste etc., for use as P/PK based fertilizer. Also includes liquid manure.

 

Background Regarding Fertilizers

 Fertilizers contain the nutrients that are essential to plant growth and development. With these nutrients, plants produce the food that animals and human beings eat.
Plants require 16 nutrient elements which are essential for completion of the life cycle. Carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) are derived from air (carbon dioxide, CO2) and water. Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), sulphur (S), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), boron (B), chloride (Cl), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo) and zinc (Zn) are mineral nutrients that are normally derived from the soil in the form of inorganic salts.

The absence or low availability of these nutrients results in death of the plant, or poor growth that is generally accompanied by visual deficiency symptoms. The nutrients must be provided by the soil, manures and/or mineral fertilizers. The nutrients are primarily taken up by the roots as ions that exist in the soil solution.

Our Current Fertilizer Offerings

 

Commodity Fertilizers

Our ICL Fertilizers segment is one of the world’s largest producers of potash and an integrated producer of a variety of products based on phosphate rock, including phosphate fertilizers, phosphoric acid and feed additives. We are the 6th largest potash producer in the world and the 2nd largest in Western Europe.

 We are also the largest producer of PK fertilizers (compound potash and phosphate fertilizers) worldwide and in Europe. Our other major markets include Brazil, India, China and Israel. We benefit from access to abundant, low-cost potash reserves and virtually unlimited open-air stockpiling capacity at the Dead Sea. The growth of our sales to Chinese and Indian customers underscores the importance of Southeast Asia as one of our primary target markets and highlights the logistical advantage we possess as a result of our production facilities in Israel.

Specialty Fertilizers

We are the world’s leading producer of MKP and one of the largest producers of liquid and soluble fertilizers. These value-added, higher margin specialty fertilizers are used for advanced, environmentally-friendly agricultural and industrial application such as a fertigation, liquid fertilizing and foliar feeding.

 During the past few years ICL Fertilizers has made several acquisitions that transformed its specialty fertilizers unit into one of the world’s major global specialty fertilizer players.