SiTration Raises $11.8 Million for Critical Metals Recovery

June 5, 2024 adhigo

Funding Accelerates Deployment of Pilot Systems with Established Commercial Partners

BOSTON, June 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — SiTration, a materials recovery company serving the mining and metals industries, today 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.

“The magnitude of the challenge presented by the need to bolster the critical materials supply chain is clear,” said Dr. Brendan Smith, CEO and co-founder of SiTration. “There is a major missing link between the clean energy technologies we so desperately need and the sourcing of the materials that are at their core. Our solution can create a cleaner, more equitable, and more profitable critical materials supply chain across multiple industries, all with a single technology.”

SiTration’s patented porous silicon membrane technology provides chemical-free, energy-efficient extraction and recycling, reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as localized pollution from traditional material sourcing. The company’s work has attracted the attention of industry, most notably through a partnership with Rio Tinto to valorize and remediate mining waste streams. This collaboration underscores SiTration’s pivotal role in catalyzing a green revolution within the mining sector.

“The key to our membrane technology lies in the combination of durability and the selective extraction performance that is unparalleled among existing solutions,” said Professor Jeffrey Grossman, co-founder of SiTration and professor at MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “Additionally, the membrane is produced via a streamlined, scalable, and economic manufacturing process, allowing for its deployment in large-scale industrial applications.”

Beyond revolutionizing clean energy material sourcing, the company is extending its membrane platform to metals refining and lithium-ion battery recycling, further solidifying its commitment to sustainability across a wide range of industries.

“The need for breakthrough technology that addresses the staggering shortage of critical metals the world is facing as we transition to a clean, electrified energy system is real,” said Jacob Bro, Partner at 2150. “With SiTration, we believe we have found the most promising technology and an incredible team to take it to commercial scale in global mining and in the emerging battery recycling industry.”

About SiTration

SiTration is a spin-out of MIT that has created a patented porous silicon membrane technology that provides a unique combination of ultra-durability, highly tunable pore structure, and electrical conductivity enabling efficient and low-cost materials recovery. SiTration’s technology can replace traditional resource-intensive mining processes and can be deployed to recover materials from traditionally inaccessible sources, including waste. The company has received grants from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E and the National Science Foundation, and is working to implement their membrane platform in mining, metals refining, and lithium-ion battery recycling.

About 2150

2150 is a venture capital firm investing in technology companies that seek to sustainably reimagine and reshape the urban environment. 2150’s investment thesis focuses on major unsolved problems across what it calls the ‘Urban Stack’, which comprises every element of the built environment, from the way our cities are designed, constructed and powered, to the way people live, work and are cared for. 2150 is part of Urban Partners, a platform of vision-aligned, differentiated, investment strategies shaped around urban problem solving.

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