How A New Jersey Startup Found An Electrifying Way To Slash Copper Costs

Skyrocketing request for copper promises to push prices to caller heights. As nan world system transitions distant from fossil fuels, it is going to request twice arsenic overmuch copper successful nan coming years than humanity has mined passim each of its existence.

Still Bright, a New Jersey-based startup founded successful 2022, thinks it has recovered a caller (and cleaner way) to slash those costs.

“The truth that we’ve already mined nan easy mineable stuff, and nan truth that we request galore much mines to travel into accumulation each twelvemonth — we’re talking for illustration 60-plus mines — is it seems for illustration an impossibility, for illustration there’s nary way to get there,” Randy Allen, co-founder and CEO of Still Bright, told TechCrunch.

But a ample fraction of that request could beryllium met if companies tin extract much copper from nan ore they already mine. 

Still Bright has developed a caller measurement to extract copper, 1 that it says tin retrieve astir each nan copper from emblematic ores without pre-processing steps that suffer up to 20% of nan metal. It’s effective capable that it could moreover beryllium utilized connected tailings, nan discard piles which still incorporate smaller amounts of nan metallic that mines time off behind.

“Any copper that was mislaid arsenic waste, we tin really process that and get nan copper back,” Allen said.

To boost accumulation from azygous digits to hundreds of tons per year, Still Bright has raised an $18.7 cardinal seed information led by Material Impact and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, nan institution exclusively told TechCrunch. Apollo Ventures, Fortescue, Impact Science Ventures, and SOSV participated.

Still Bright’s exertion allows it to extract copper without producing harmful pollution. Where astir companies fundamentally pain distant unwanted parts of nan ore —releasing overmuch of it into nan ambiance — Still Bright soaks copper-containing ores successful a vanadium-based solution, which draws nan metallic retired of nan ore. When nan vanadium solution is spent, nan company’s strategy uses energy to regenerate it.

The halfway exertion was inspired by a type of long-duration power retention known arsenic a vanadium travel battery. In it, a vanadium-based solution that tin beryllium stored successful ample tanks is charged and discharged by flowing it past a membrane. 

“All of this is benignant of happenstance. The method inventor, nan CTO of nan institution Jon [Vardner], he was moving connected 2 different projects,” Allen said, 1 connected vanadium travel batteries and different connected utilizing vanadium to extract copper. “It’s connecting nan dots. One personification happened to beryllium doing both.”

Still Bright’s modular strategy will beryllium capable to beryllium installed astatine mines spanning a scope of sizes. Because nan vanadium-based process useful truthful quickly, nan company’s instrumentality is overmuch smaller than a emblematic refiner for nan aforesaid magnitude of copper production. “The processing is connected nan bid of minutes, up to an hour. That allows america to support everything really small.”

The mini size pays financial dividends, too. Allen said that Still Bright’s instrumentality is 70% to 90% cheaper than emblematic pyrometallurgical gear. Currently, nan company’s process costs astir nan aforesaid to tally arsenic a emblematic refinery, but Allen expects that to change. “There’s a batch of opportunity for america to beryllium cheaper,” he said.

Still Bright is readying to build a objection portion successful 2027 aliases 2028 that’s tin of producing 500 tons of copper annually. It’s a large leap from nan existent aviator standard unit, which makes 2 tons per year. The eventual commercial-scale strategy will nutrient 10,000 tons per year.

The timepiece is ticking though. Still Bright would for illustration to commencement refining copper successful ample capable quantities to use from immoderate tariffs President Trump mightiness enforce connected imports of nan metal. If it does, it tin usage those revenues to create and deploy commercialized standard units.

“We spot ourselves arsenic having a way to beryllium among nan cheapest copper producers,” Allen said.