Rockwood Works With Italian Universities

Rockwood Holdings is seeking up to $10 million from the regional government of Piedmont, Italy, to help build a pilot-scale facility to make cathode materials for electric-car batteries. Rockwood will work with Politecnico, an engineering university in Turin, Italy, to develop the firm's lithium and particle synthesis technology. Separately, along with the University of Turin, Rockwood has developed colorants that merge iron oxide pigments with the photocatalytic properties of titanium dioxide. When exposed to sunlight, construction materials containing the new Solarox pigments will self-clean, reduce air pollutants, and inhibit microbial growth, the firm says.