An American startup is scaling up a process for harvesting materials, including rare earth metals and nickel, from mining waste into critical metals. Critical metals are a group of elements essential for modern technologies and industries, particularly those related to clean energy, electronics, and advanced manufacturing.
These metals are often rare, have complex extraction processes, and are concentrated in a few geopolitical regions. China leads the pack.
Phoenix Tailings, co-founded by MIT alumni, uses water and recyclable solvents to collect oxidized metal, then puts the metal into a heated molten salt mixture and applies electricity, MIT News reports.
US startup’s production of critical metals without toxic byproducts
The company says its pilot production facility in Woburn, Massachusetts, is the only site in the world producing rare earth metals without toxic byproducts or carbon emissions. The process does use electricity, but Phoenix Tailings currently offsets that with renewable energy contracts.
The American startup expects to produce more than 3,000 tons of critical metals by 2026, which would be representative of about 7 percent of last year’s total US production.
Now, with support from the Department of Energy, Phoenix Tailings is expanding the list of metals it can produce and accelerating plans to build a second production facility.
For the founding team, including MIT graduates Tomás Villalón ’14 and Michelle Chao ’14 along with Nick Myers and Anthony Balladon, the work has implications for geopolitics and the planet.
“Being able to make your own materials domestically means that you’re not at the behest of a foreign monopoly,” Villalón says per MIT News. “We’re focused on creating critical materials for the next generation of technologies. More broadly, we want to get these materials in ways that are sustainable in the long term.”
Today, at the company’s refinery in Woburn, Phoenix Tailings puts mining waste rich in rare earth metals into its mixture and heats it to around 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit. When it applies an electric current to the mixture, pure metal collects on an electrode. The process leaves minimal waste behind.
“The key for all of this isn’t just the chemistry, but how everything is linked together, because, with rare earths, you have to hit really high purities compared to a conventionally produced metal,” Villalón explains to MIT News. “As a result, you have to be thinking about the purity of your material the entire way through.”
China dominates the critical metals sector
Critical metals, which include lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper are crucial for the development of renewable energy technologies like wind turbines, solar panels, and energy storage systems.
They are essential for the production of advanced technologies, such as smartphones, computers, and electric vehicles.
China holds a significant lead in the critical metals sector. They have a dominant position in the mining, processing, and refining of many critical metals, particularly rare earth elements.
This dominance has raised concerns about supply chain vulnerabilities and geopolitical risks for countries heavily reliant on Chinese imports.
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