MI2 InnoSearch 2025 Industry Problems Winner: Nucor and River Metals Recycling

This year, MI2 partnered with InnoEngine for the MI2 InnoSearch competition. The competition aimed to bridge the gap between real-world industry challenges and breakthrough innovation. Kentucky manufacturers and innovators were invited to submit pressing problem statements and pilot-ready technologies aimed at advancing sustainability, workforce resilience, and operational excellence across the metals industry. Finalists from both tracks showcased their ideas at the Kentucky Industry Conference.

The MI2 InnoSearch 2025 Industry Problems Search was designed to elevate the most urgent and complex challenges facing today’s manufacturers. This year’s winning submission brings critical attention to one of the industry’s fastest-growing tensions: balancing sustainability goals with safety, compliance, and operational realities.

We’re proud to recognize MI2 found member company Nucor Corporation and River Metals Recycling as the Industry Problems Search Winner.

As manufacturers increasingly rely on recycled materials to reduce environmental impact, new risks are entering the production stream. Nucor’s challenge centers on the safe integration of recycled batteries and other hazardous feedstocks into metals manufacturing; materials that offer sustainability benefits but introduce serious safety and compliance concerns. From fire risks and chemical exposure to storage and environmental regulations, these feedstocks complicate traditional processing methods and demand new approaches.

Nucor’s submission reflects a challenge many manufacturers are already facing. The rapid growth of electric vehicles, energy storage systems, and advanced electronics is driving a surge of battery-related materials into recycling streams. When those materials reach metals production environments, manufacturers must be equipped to identify, manage, and mitigate hazards without slowing operations or compromising worker safety.

What stood out to InnoSearch judges was the scale and urgency of this problem. This is not a single-company issue; it is an industry-wide challenge that will require new detection technologies, improved material tracking, enhanced safety protocols, and strong partnerships across recyclers, manufacturers, technology providers, and regulators.

For MI2, elevating challenges like this is a core part of the mission. Innovation doesn’t start with answers, it starts by clearly defining the problems that matter most. By naming Nucor’s submission as the Industry Problems Search winner, MI2's InnoSearch is helping focus the industry’s collective attention on where collaboration and innovation are most needed.

This recognition sets the stage for meaningful dialogue and solution-building. One goal of the 2025 InnoSearch was to connect industry problems to innovative solutions. MI2 is proud to announce the 2025 InnoSearch Solutions Winner VISIA helps address Nucor's (and other manufacturers) navigation of evolving realities of sustainable production, MI2 looks forward to seeing how this challenge and VISIA's solution can help strengthen safety, resilience, and competitiveness across Kentucky’s metals industry and beyond.

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