COMPANY NAME Datenberg
COUNTRY Germany
SECTOR Digital
CIRCULAR BUSINESS MODEL Circular Supply Chain, Recovery and Recycling
Challenge
DatenBerg is a digital solutions provider that enables companies to collect, analyze, and utilize their machine and quality data. They have developed a intelligent digital tool accessible and practical. The company enables data from various sources (e.g., from machines, testing equipment, or manual entries) to be stored in one place and used in analyses or dashboards throughout the production process. Over time, Datenberg has built strong expertise in rubber compounding — a highly complex field where different raw materials are blended to create rubber compounds which are then further processed, e.g., into conveyor belts or seals. This industry faces significant sustainability challenges, as many of the materials involved have a poor CO₂ footprint and recycled materials are rarely used due to their variability and sensitivity in production.
Solution
The project, RADRI (Rubber AI-Driven Recyclate Integration), tackles this challenge by exploring how recyclates can be better integrated into rubber production. With the support of Up2Circ, the company was able to dedicate time and resources to investigate the needs of manufacturers, conducting interviews across departments such as quality management, product development, and production. These insights helped identify key barriers, such as uncertainty about the quality of recyclates, and opportunities for digital solutions. Based on this, the company began developing a concept for an AI-supported formulation assistant that can recommend adjustments to recipes, enabling more reliable use of recycled materials. In this way, the project aligns closely with their mission to support both digital transformation and sustainable innovation in industry.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY STRATEGIES/BUSINESS MODEL IMPLEMENTED
Many companies that manufacture rubber products would like to use recyclates or at least a certain percentage. The difficulty about that is that the ingredients and characteristics of recyclates are extremely complex. There is high risk that the endproduct does not have the characteristics and quality a manufacturer needs to guarantee.
However digitalisation and artificial intelligence as tools enable to analyse large amounts of data within a short time. Digitalising recipes for rubber mixtures and using artificial intelligence for analysing how recyclates are influencing the end-product, enables the manufacturers to use more recyclates while ensuring high quality. Existing rubber is prevented from becoming landfill, used again and CO2 is saved.
Impact
Environmental:
Rubberproducts are kept in the material loop, used again instead of becoming waste. At the same time using recyclates saves CO2 for manufacturers of new rubber products.
Plans to focus more on the recycling topic and supporting manufacturing partners in this field, always existed in the company. But it needed Up2Circ to finally create this time window in daily processes. “We learned that our partners are open for this topic and that we are able to support them in their circular transition. This spirit of new beginnings is of course encouraging us to position ourselves more strongly with our products as a sustainability-oriented digitalization partner.”
Economical:
“We have a clearer understanding of the challenges in using recyclates in rubber processing. Being in touch with the manufacturers, we roughly knew before that using recyclates is not that easy in this sector, but really understanding the challenging points along the process and how AI-supported software could help, is a new learning. Collecting these detailed information as part of our Up2Circ project lead to the establishment of initial partnerships with manufacturers for joint development. The level of collaboration deepened and strengthened internal expertise in sustainability and circular economy.
And last not least is of course the development of a prototype concept for an AI-based formulation assistant system the most visible outcome.”
Take Away
Our plan right now is to work with the customer to develop a new software module focused specifically on formulation development for recyclates in rubber compounds. So, the topic we began in our Up2Circ project is continuing. And beyond the use of recyclates in the rubber industry, we also see potential to expand into other areas — like batteries, for example. But that’s more of a long-term perspective.