Albemarle technology review. Albemarle is a specialty chemicals company, headquartered in North Carolina, with 6,000 global employees and over $3bn pa of revenues, derives 40% of its business from producing lithium, 35% from bromine-based flame retardants, and c25% from catalysts, especially for FCC and cleaner-burning fuels.
Overall, our patent screen de-risks the idea that Albemarle is continuing to improve its product offering, by developing an array of novel fire-proofing bromine compositions, further and better lithium pathways, and longer-lasting catalysts. But the patents are more for incremental improvements than world-changing new technologies.
We think 70% of the patents are for technologies that will advance the energy transition in some way, as discussed in the data-file.
Lithium remains one of the most challenging bottlenecks in the energy transition, with demand set to rise 30x (model here). Our overview of the industry is here. We have not been able to de-risk game-changing new DLE technologies that would disrupt the industry (note here). This helps incumbents, including Albemrarle and other leading companies, which are screened here.
To read more of our Albemarle technology review, please see our article here.