BHP
Canvas Category OEM : Mining
We are supplying the resources the world needs to help build a better, clearer future. Copper for renewable energy. Nickel for electric vehicles. Potash for sustainable farming. Iron ore and metallurgical coal for the steel needed for global infrastructure and the energy transition.
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SiTration Raises $11.8 Million for Critical Metals Recovery
SiTration, a materials recovery company serving the mining and metals industries, announced it has raised $11.8 million in seed capital. The financing round was led by 2150 with participation from BHP Ventures, Extantia, and Orion Industrial Ventures. Previous investors Azolla Ventures and MIT-affiliated E14 Fund also participated in the oversubscribed round. The funding will be used to scale the company’s novel solution for the recovery of critical metals and minerals and to deploy pilot systems with commercial partners.
Founded as a spinoff from research conducted at MIT, SiTration is working to address the demand for critical materials needed to manufacture technologies that are key to the clean energy transition, including electric motors, wind turbines, and batteries. The company’s innovative solution lowers both the cost and the resource intensity of extracting and recycling materials, contributing to the overall push towards a circular economy.
Electra Launches Pilot Plant to Advance Commercialization of Sustainable Clean Iron Production
Electra, a clean iron company, announced the commissioning of its Pilot plant in Boulder, Colorado. The Pilot demonstrates Electra’s first-of-a-kind technology to produce metallic iron from already mined, high-impurity, commercially stranded ores to accelerate decarbonization, sustainability, and circularity across the ore-to-steel value chain.
With 90 percent of steel production’s CO2 emissions coming from ironmaking, Electra’s process takes on this challenge by operating at merely 140 degrees Fahrenheit, enabling seamless integration of intermittent renewable energy resources, making emissions-free iron possible at temperatures colder than coffee. The process intakes a wide range of ores and the principal iron ore impurities like alumina and silica are selectively refined as co-products. With greater than 99 percent purity, Electra’s clean iron, combined with recycled scrap steel, offers the highest value-in-use for electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmakers, while reducing the capital intensity, cost, and waste across the value chain.
🔋 Ascend Elements Raises $542 Million to Accelerate Production of U.S.-engineered Lithium-Ion Battery Materials
Ascend Elements, a U.S.-based manufacturer of sustainable, engineered battery materials for electric vehicles, today announced it has raised $542 million in new equity investments, including $460 million in Series D investments and $82 million of additional investments from earlier this year. Ascend Elements’ Series D round was led by Decarbonization Partners, Singapore-based investment firm Temasek, and Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). Other investors include Tenaska, Alliance Resource Partners, PULSE - CMA CGM Energy Fund, BHP Ventures, Fifth Wall, Hitachi Ventures, Mirae Asset, At One Ventures, Agave Partners, Alumni Ventures and other leading global investors.
The funding will advance construction of Ascend Elements’ Apex 1 facility in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, which will be North America’s first sustainable cathode precursor (pCAM) and cathode active material (CAM) manufacturing facility. CAM and pCAM are engineered materials made to precise microstructure specifications for use in electric vehicle batteries. While most of the world’s pCAM and CAM are made in China from primary (mined) metals, U.S.-based Ascend Elements is commercializing an ultra-efficient method to make sustainable pCAM and CAM from black mass, the traditional output of lithium-ion battery recycling facilities.
Boston Metal Closes $262M Series C Funding Round to Decarbonize Steelmaking and Disrupt the Metals Industry
Boston Metal, a global metals technology solutions company, today announced the close of its Series C fundraising, bringing the series total to $262 million. New investors include Aramco Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of Aramco; global investment manager M&G Investments; natural resource investment firm Goehring & Rozencwajg; and investment management firm Baillie Gifford. Existing investor Breakthrough Energy Ventures also joined the round, and several others made additional investments in the Series C, including Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, BHP Ventures and Prelude Ventures.
The metals and mining sectors are under significant pressure to shift to more sustainable production methods while enhancing efficiency and profitability. Boston Metal is developing a scalable technology platform that uses electricity to produce a variety of metals and alloys from a wide range of feedstocks. The company’s Molten Oxide Electrolysis process is simpler, more energy efficient and has a lower environmental impact than traditional methods. With its high-value metals business, Boston Metal is empowering mining companies to create new revenue streams by deploying MOE to extract high-value metals from complex, low-concentration materials that are currently considered waste.
Electra raises $85M to electrify and decarbonize iron and steelmaking with no green premium
Electra, a green iron company, has raised $85 million to produce Low-Temperature Iron (LTI) from commercial and low-grade ores using zero-carbon intermittent electricity. Electra’s process emits zero carbon dioxide emissions and carries zero green premium, meaning it will cost the same or less than existing production methods powered by fossil fuels.
Electra, founded by entrepreneurs with decades of experience developing complex electrochemical systems, has created a novel process to electrochemically refine iron ore into pure iron at 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) using renewable electricity and then convert the iron to steel using the existing infrastructure of electricity-powered arc furnaces. By comparison, 69% of steel today is made at approximately 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 degrees Fahrenheit) using coal, emitting about two tons of carbon dioxide for every ton of steel produced.
KoBold Metals Raises $192.5 Million to Use AI to Find Battery Minerals
KoBold aims to change the mind-set of an industry that has long relied heavily on sampling soil and sediment and drilling holes in the ground to determine whether areas contain valuable minerals. While the company still leans on those techniques, it hopes to limit the chances of failure by drawing on machine learning and other scientific computing techniques.
In September [2021], KoBold formed an exploration alliance with BHP, the world’s largest mining company by market value. It is one of a number of partnerships it has with resources companies world-wide.