Beyond the bag · circular economy

The residue leaves the field. We bring the minerals back.

Crop residue leaves the field to fuel a bio-power boiler. The potassium and the silicon that the crop pulled out of that soil leave with it, and end up concentrated in the fly ash. We collect that ash, measure what is in it, recover the potassium and the silicon, and formulate them back into fertilizer. That is the loop.

01 Where it stands 02 What we do not claim

Also in this section, on their own pages

Fly ash to nutrient →What physically happens to a tonne of ash after it reaches VAN, step by step.The soil actions register →Every intervention VAN makes to soil, the mechanism it works through, and the evidence behind it. The ones we leave off are named too.

01Where it stands

Potassium is in production. Silicon is not.

We do not average the two into one status. A reader deserves to know which is which before reading the process.

~20%

of VAN’s potash intake now comes from recovered material, not import

3,000 t

fly ash processed on the pilot line to date

500 t

recovered potash a year, from 5,000 t of ash. The line we are building for 2027

~10 : 1

tonnes of ash in, per tonne of potash out

We recover potassium today and consume it inside our own manufacturing, in place of imported potash. It is a working raw material, not a trial. About 300 tonnes of imported potash has been replaced between 2023 and 2026, across several forms and grades, which is what 3,000 tonnes of ash yields at the recovery ratio above.

We have taken the silicon route to the final stage of R&D. It is proven in our laboratory and is being readied to join the production line. The target form is not fixed yet. Soluble silicate and amorphous silica behave differently in an alkaline soil, and we will name the form when the R&D settles it, not before. Scale-up is planned for the end of 2027.

Potassium: in production · scaling upSilicon: R&D. Final stageFeedstock: bio-fuel plant fly ashHeavy metals screened by PCSIR

02What we do not claim

Recovered potassium goes into every potash grade, so no single bag is marked with it.

Recovered potassium enters VAN products as a raw material, the same way bought-in potash does. It is not ring-fenced for one grade, so in practice it reaches every potash-containing product we make, which is exactly why no VAN product page carries a “made with recovered potassium” mark. We publish the intake share and stop there.

Silicon recovery is still finishing R&D and is not in any product. We do not claim to close the carbon loop: combustion takes the carbon, we recover the minerals.

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