Transition Metal Solutions<\/a>, says it has found a way to boost copper production by 20% to 30% using additives to boost the microbes\u2019 performance. Think of it as prebiotics for copper mines.<\/p>\nTo scale up its technology, Transition Metal Solutions has raised a $6 million seed round, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The round was led by Transition Ventures with participation from Astor Management AG, Climate Capital, Dolby Family Ventures, Essential Capital, Juniper VC, Kayak Ventures, New Climate Ventures, Possible Ventures, SOSV, and Understorey Ventures.<\/p>\n
Microbes have always been key players in the copper world, helping the metal break out of its mineral form so that we can refine it into pure metal. Companies have been working for years to coax microbes into squeezing more copper out of ore, but according to Sasha Milshteyn, co-founder and CEO of Transition, they\u2019ve been going about it the wrong way.<\/p>\n
Typically, companies isolate or engineer strains that show promise in boosting copper production. They grow large quantities of them and pour them over an ore heap, where the microbes soak in and get to work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat by and large hasn\u2019t paid off,\u201d Milshteyn told TechCrunch. \u201cOften they will see kind of a boost early on and then it just kind of falls off \u2014 or they don\u2019t see any boost at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Milshteyn suspects that part of the problem is that microbes aren\u2019t solo actors. It\u2019s like casting a star without a supporting cast. Microbes live in diverse communities where each plays a role. Bumping up the population of one strain can only do so much.<\/p>\n
Another part of the problem is that we\u2019ve only scratched the surface on understanding microbes in ore heaps. \u201cWhen you look into the microbial community that\u2019s present in the material, typically well over 90% of it are things that we\u2019ve never seen before,\u201d Milshteyn said<\/p>\n
Conditions inside a heap leach, as the acid-laced piles of ore are called, are challenging to replicate in a lab. The pH is low, around two, and there are clays and other metals floating around, all of which undermine the usual molecular tools scientists use to understand microbial communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything that the industry has done has really focused on that tiny fraction that people have been able to grow in the lab,\u201d he said. \u201cTypically, it\u2019s in the 5% range that you can culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
So instead of trying to isolate a few star performers, Transition is working to raise the entire community up. The company applies low cost, mostly inorganic compounds that are already found at mining sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re focused on is not necessarily boosting one or two species, but we\u2019re we are trying to nudge the community towards the higher functional state,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve observed that in the lab.\u201d<\/p>\n
In lab samples that Transition has applied its proprietary cocktail to, the startup has been able to extract 90% of the copper from the ore, up from 60% using traditional methods.<\/p>\n
Outside of the lab, Milshteyn expects the efficacy to drop a bit, though not by much. Traditional heap leaches extract around 30% to 60% of the copper in the ore. He thinks Transition can bring that up to at least 50% to 70%, maybe as higher.<\/p>\n
Each mine has a different microbial community, so Transition plans to tailor its additives based on initial testing. As the company gathers more data, Milshteyn thinks that eventually he and his team will be able to predict what a mine needs in advance.<\/p>\n
At that rate, the company\u2019s prebiotics could solve the copper shortage before it starts. But first, Transition has to show the mining industry that its solution works. The company plans to work with a third-party metallurgy lab that\u2019s known within the mining world. \u201cWithout third party results, nobody\u2019s going to believe you,\u201d Milshteyn said. Money from the seed round should cover that phase of testing.<\/p>\n
After Transition has proven it works in the lab, then it\u2019ll apply its treatment to a demonstration heap containing tens of thousands of tons of material. With luck, it\u2019ll then deploy its technology at copper mines around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re leaving 65% of material behind\u201d at typical mines, Milshteyn said. \u201cWe may as well get as much out of it as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Update 8 am PT: The article previously referred to Transition\u2019s additives as probiotics instead of prebiotics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Magnetorquer Rods Coils for cubesat satellites pushed blurred motion on an anti-static trolley in cleanroom, Cape Town, South…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[1543,196613,196612,12420,97,269,196611],"class_list":{"0":"post-409224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-copper","9":"tag-copper-deposit","10":"tag-copper-producers","11":"tag-copper-production","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-nutrition","14":"tag-sasha-milshteyn"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}