Latest news with #Magrathea
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Magrathea launches new electrolyser to advance production technology and scale operations
Magrathea, a technology company specialising in magnesium production from seawater, has launched its new magnesium chloride electrolyser at its pilot facility in Oakland, California, US. This development marks a step towards scaling the company's operations and providing a US-based critical minerals supply chain. The company's new electrolyser is designed to optimise the production of magnesium metal by splitting magnesium salts using electricity. Magrathea's technology is set to significantly reduce both the carbon footprint and operating costs of future commercial plants. Over the coming months, Magrathea will collect and process data, aiming to minimise electricity usage, recycle energy and refine the dehydration process, which presents the largest cost-saving potential in magnesium metal production. The gathered data and processing insights are also expected to facilitate the permitting processes for new facilities due to the technology's environmental benefits. Magrathea's advancements in magnesium production technology come at a crucial time, as Russia and China currently dominate 90% of the global primary magnesium supply, with no significant producer in any NATO country. The company's pilot plant in California has the capacity to produce 4,000 pounds of magnesium annually at full capacity and demonstrates competitive operating costs. The technology is carbon-neutral, producing zero CO₂ equivalent/kg of magnesium, compared with more than 40kg of CO₂ equivalent with the current Chinese process. This attribute is expected to aid in streamlining future facility permitting. Magrathea CEO Alex Grant said: 'Magnesium is one of the most important critical materials, but NATO countries face a dire shortage of non-China supply. Western nations must view this supply crisis as a national security emergency. 'At our core, Magrathea's innovative technology revitalises a proven process with our own twist for considerable efficiency improvement and expense reduction. We expect to reduce the technology's operating expenses to make it cost-competitive with alternative production methods that exist today, including in China.' With plans to scale up production to two million pounds of magnesium per year by 2027, Magrathea aims to meet the demands of various industries including aerospace and defence. The company has already secured agreements with more than 25 companies including ten linked to the US defence industry, an offtake agreement with a global automaker and a resource supply agreement with Cargill. Additionally, Magrathea's production of chloride co-products opens further market opportunities. The company's scale-up efforts are supported by Sedgman Novopro, an engineering operator with mining and mineral processing expertise. Backed by credible investors such as the US Department of Defense and leaders from companies such as Glencore and Tesla, Magrathea is well-positioned to advance its magnesium production technology. "Magrathea launches new electrolyser to advance production technology and scale operations" was originally created and published by Mining Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Wire
28-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
U.S.-Based Magrathea Launches Next-Gen Magnesium Production Technology, Advances Plans to Scale
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Magrathea ('Magrathea' or the 'Company'), a technology company that produces magnesium metal from seawater, today announced the launch of its next-generation magnesium chloride electrolyzer, a machine that uses electricity to split magnesium salts to make magnesium metal, at its pilot facility in Oakland, California. This milestone is a crucial step to advance the technical and data framework for a future scaled plant. Additionally, the project strategically positions Magrathea's technology to provide American companies with access to U.S.-based critical mineral supply chains amid shifting trade policies and export controls. 'Magnesium is one of the most important critical materials, but NATO countries face a dire shortage of non-China supply,' Alex Grant, CEO of Magrathea, said. 'Western nations must view this supply crisis as a national security emergency.' 'At our core, Magrathea's innovative technology revitalizes a proven process with our own twist for considerable efficiency improvement and expense reduction,' Mr. Grant continued. 'We expect to reduce the technology's operating expenses to make it cost-competitive with alternative production methods that exist today, including in China. Magrathea is in conversations with several major defense, chemical and mining industrial players to form a strategic partnership to scale up our technology as the first new commercial-scale magnesium electrolyzer in the United States in the past 50 years.' Over the coming months, Magrathea will use data gathered from the pilot-scale electrolyzer to create a scalable technical model aimed at achieving the highest efficiencies from both environmental and economic perspectives. The Company will focus on obtaining process data, minimizing total electricity use, recycling energy in strategic ways and optimizing the dehydration process, which offers the biggest opportunity for cost reduction in the electrolytic magnesium metal production process. These technical efforts are expected to significantly reduce the carbon footprint and operating expenditure of future commercial plants. The data and key processing learnings are also expected to help streamline permitting processes for future facilities given the inherent environmental benefits of the technology. Magrathea and Magnesium Highlights The 'Gateway Metal': Magnesium unlocks a wide range of applications, such as stiffening aluminum in alloys, steel making, nuclear inputs, automotive, aerospace, and next-generation defense applications. Solving a National Security Emergency: Russia and China currently control 90% of the global primary magnesium supply with no significant producer in any NATO country. First Mover Advantage: Magrathea is the most advanced new producer of magnesium metal with significant intellectual property including patents and trade secrets. Existing Operations: Magrathea's operational pilot plant in California can produce 4,000 pounds of magnesium annually at full capacity. Low Operational Expense: Magrathea's technology demonstrates competitive operating costs, leveraging abundantly available seawater and renewable energy as feedstock. Carbon Neutral: Technology produces 0 kg CO2 eq./kg magnesium compared to over 40 kg CO2 eq./kg magnesium with the incumbent Chinese process, which is expected to further streamline permitting processes for future scaled facilities. Scalable to Meet Demand: Magrathea – in partnership with a strategic partner – plans to deploy its technology at a scaled facility by 2027 to produce up to 2 million pounds of magnesium per year, enough to support the equivalent production of thousands of Black Hawk helicopters annually. Significant Commercial Traction: Magrathea has signed agreements with more than 25 companies, including 10 connected to the U.S. defense industry, an offtake agreement with a global automaker, and a resource supply agreement with Cargill. Additional Market Opportunities: In addition to magnesium, Magrathea produces chloride co-products, which have a wide range of end-markets such as bleach, to unlock more value and improve project economics. Strong Engineering Partnership: Magrathea is collaborating with Sedgman Novopro, an engineering firm specialized in mining and mineral processing, to support its scale-up engineering and design program. Backed By Marquee Investors: Technology is backed by credible investors, including the U.S. Department of Defense, Capricorn, VoLo Earth, Exor Ventures, Sam Altman, and leaders at Glencore, Mitra Chem, Tesla, and many more. About Magrathea Magrathea is a technology company based in California that has developed a process for making magnesium metal from seawater and brines to help the West solve its magnesium shortage. Magnesium is essential for a wide range of applications such as stiffening aluminum in alloys, steel making, inputs for nuclear applications, automotive, aerospace, and next-generation defense applications. The company's technology is expected to be the largest primary production solution across NATO countries by 2030. For more information, please visit
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
U.S.-Based Magrathea Launches Next-Gen Magnesium Production Technology, Advances Plans to Scale
Important step to build a scalable technical model and garner data to deploy technology commercially to support the manufacturing of virtually all of America's key defense platforms Implementing technical initiatives to further improve cost and environmental efficiencies of proven technology Technology enables American companies to secure a reliable critical mineral supply to counter trade policies and export controls SAN FRANCISCO, May 28, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Magrathea ("Magrathea" or the "Company"), a technology company that produces magnesium metal from seawater, today announced the launch of its next-generation magnesium chloride electrolyzer, a machine that uses electricity to split magnesium salts to make magnesium metal, at its pilot facility in Oakland, California. This milestone is a crucial step to advance the technical and data framework for a future scaled plant. Additionally, the project strategically positions Magrathea's technology to provide American companies with access to U.S.-based critical mineral supply chains amid shifting trade policies and export controls. "Magnesium is one of the most important critical materials, but NATO countries face a dire shortage of non-China supply," Alex Grant, CEO of Magrathea, said. "Western nations must view this supply crisis as a national security emergency." "At our core, Magrathea's innovative technology revitalizes a proven process with our own twist for considerable efficiency improvement and expense reduction," Mr. Grant continued. "We expect to reduce the technology's operating expenses to make it cost-competitive with alternative production methods that exist today, including in China. Magrathea is in conversations with several major defense, chemical and mining industrial players to form a strategic partnership to scale up our technology as the first new commercial-scale magnesium electrolyzer in the United States in the past 50 years." Over the coming months, Magrathea will use data gathered from the pilot-scale electrolyzer to create a scalable technical model aimed at achieving the highest efficiencies from both environmental and economic perspectives. The Company will focus on obtaining process data, minimizing total electricity use, recycling energy in strategic ways and optimizing the dehydration process, which offers the biggest opportunity for cost reduction in the electrolytic magnesium metal production process. These technical efforts are expected to significantly reduce the carbon footprint and operating expenditure of future commercial plants. The data and key processing learnings are also expected to help streamline permitting processes for future facilities given the inherent environmental benefits of the technology. Magrathea and Magnesium Highlights The "Gateway Metal": Magnesium unlocks a wide range of applications, such as stiffening aluminum in alloys, steel making, nuclear inputs, automotive, aerospace, and next-generation defense applications. Solving a National Security Emergency: Russia and China currently control 90% of the global primary magnesium supply with no significant producer in any NATO country. First Mover Advantage: Magrathea is the most advanced new producer of magnesium metal with significant intellectual property including patents and trade secrets. Existing Operations: Magrathea's operational pilot plant in California can produce 4,000 pounds of magnesium annually at full capacity. Low Operational Expense: Magrathea's technology demonstrates competitive operating costs, leveraging abundantly available seawater and renewable energy as feedstock. Carbon Neutral: Technology produces 0 kg CO2 eq./kg magnesium compared to over 40 kg CO2 eq./kg magnesium with the incumbent Chinese process, which is expected to further streamline permitting processes for future scaled facilities. Scalable to Meet Demand: Magrathea – in partnership with a strategic partner – plans to deploy its technology at a scaled facility by 2027 to produce up to 2 million pounds of magnesium per year, enough to support the equivalent production of thousands of Black Hawk helicopters annually. Significant Commercial Traction: Magrathea has signed agreements with more than 25 companies, including 10 connected to the U.S. defense industry, an offtake agreement with a global automaker, and a resource supply agreement with Cargill. Additional Market Opportunities: In addition to magnesium, Magrathea produces chloride co-products, which have a wide range of end-markets such as bleach, to unlock more value and improve project economics. Strong Engineering Partnership: Magrathea is collaborating with Sedgman Novopro, an engineering firm specialized in mining and mineral processing, to support its scale-up engineering and design program. Backed By Marquee Investors: Technology is backed by credible investors, including the U.S. Department of Defense, Capricorn, VoLo Earth, Exor Ventures, Sam Altman, and leaders at Glencore, Mitra Chem, Tesla, and many more. About Magrathea Magrathea is a technology company based in California that has developed a process for making magnesium metal from seawater and brines to help the West solve its magnesium shortage. Magnesium is essential for a wide range of applications such as stiffening aluminum in alloys, steel making, inputs for nuclear applications, automotive, aerospace, and next-generation defense applications. The company's technology is expected to be the largest primary production solution across NATO countries by 2030. For more information, please visit View source version on Contacts Mediamedia@
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How our clean-tech startup stumbled into a Pentagon partnership by following the demand
My love for our planet began as a child growing up in rural Canada. I'm a lifelong hiker, fisherman, animal lover, and mineral collector. These interests deepened my appreciation for the value of a healthy planet. When I moved to San Francisco, I set out to transform my passion for nature into clean-tech action. Over the next decade, I launched startups addressing major environmental challenges and worked as an advisor helping global blue-chip clients make their technologies more resilient, cost-effective, and profitable, all while being greener. After working in natural resources, I set out on my next big venture, founding Magrathea in 2022 right here in San Francisco to develop electrolytic technology capable of creating magnesium metal from seawater—metal that could be used to manufacture electric vehicles while emitting zero CO2 emissions and reducing humanity's need for terrestrial mining. But world events would soon reshape our trajectory in ways I never anticipated. Our first fundraise for Magrathea, in March 2022, coincided with a turning point I never expected: the start of Putin's full-scale invasion of the rest of Ukraine. I'm not proud to admit it—and want to be clear about that—but this horrific development, to our surprise, created momentum for Magrathea in an unexpected area: the defense industry. With the onset of the Ukraine war, the U.S. and other NATO countries immediately focused on shoring up their defenses and military spending. Almost all military products—Black Hawk helicopters, AI-powered drones, next-generation fighter jets—require magnesium. It's a critical component in making aluminum alloys stronger and is irreplaceable in a number of defense industry applications. Naturally, the U.S. and other NATO allies suddenly required more magnesium—and they turned to Magrathea. About a year later, we found ourselves in partnership with the U.S. Defense Department via a Defense Production Act Title III grant to further develop our technology to secure the U.S.'s defense industrial base. Magrathea's strategic pivot amidst the Ukraine war served as a valuable lesson. It illuminated a critical aspect of being successful with technological development: You have to make something the market wants. To deliver successful technology, helping the environment simply isn't enough. You need a viable technology solution in the short term with a proven end market and robust economics. Safeguarding the environment becomes a valuable byproduct, but for that benefit to be realized, the economics must work. In the case of magnesium, our end market is expansive—magnesium metal is perhaps the most important critical material, and it's the only structural metal you can make from seawater. You can't manufacture planes or cars without it. In addition to steel and aluminum, magnesium is also essential for titanium (aerospace applications), beryllium (electronics), and amorphous boron (defense)—as well as hafnium and zirconium (nuclear). Our confidence in meeting this demand stems from historical precedent: A legacy variation of our process was used by Dow Chemical in Freeport, Texas. Using this process, Dow helped the U.S. become the world's largest producer of magnesium metal, running the smelter for over 70 years until the late 1990s. We're building on this proven foundation with modern innovations including a major upgrade to the way magnesium chloride salt is processed before electrolysis. Where we really differ from our predecessors is that we believe we have cracked the code when it comes to producing magnesium in a cost-effective manner by developing a less-capital-intensive, more durable salt processing and electrolysis system. We have five patent applications and mountains of trade secrets protecting the innovations we've imbued on the electrolytic magnesium metal production process. We're a team of less than 20, but we've done more than a team of 50 could do in five years at a big company. As powerful and large as the market opportunity for magnesium is, having great technology is only the first step. What is most urgently needed is investment. To ensure America becomes a leader in critical minerals and other emerging industries, billions of dollars to fund large capital projects is what will truly move the needle. This is something I have been communicating to the U.S. federal government every time I talk to them. For us, while we can produce magnesium at a small scale and sell it to customers, we need more capital to build large-scale facilities to produce the amount of metal that our customers really need. To date, we have raised $12 million in private funding and have a $28 million partnership with the DOD, but this is only enough for us to develop our technology to pilot scale and improve processes. To take Magrathea to the next level, the government needs to understand that they must make capital available in the form of large grants and loan guarantees. The private investment industry is not going to figure this out on their own. We need the government to be first movers. America has viable, compelling technology solutions available today to address its critical minerals shortage, but they need immense capital to scale. The Chinese understand this, and they made such capital available to build up their crucial industries decades ago. Yet our government has repeatedly missed similar opportunities, allowing promising technologies, especially clean technologies like batteries and solar photovoltaics, to be sent to their graves before being scaled up. Climate solutions, national security, economic growth—these are not separate battles in my mind. They are one and the same. America has the chance to win them all, but that requires more than white papers, essays, and speeches. It requires focus, patience, and—most importantly—investment. There is a path forward to bring primary magnesium metal manufacturing back to the United States to bolster national security, and to drive growth of this important and valuable industry all while bringing climate solutions to market. Now, more than ever, America has a chance to turn innovation—provided we choose to invest in it—into leadership. As Magrathea enters the next stage of its journey—with plans to establish the first commercial electrolytic magnesium facility in the past 50 years—my climate passion is still very much with me. I don't know for certain that the rest of my journey will be without its pivots, but one thing I do know is that I'll never overlook the importance of building solutions that can help our planet. The opinions expressed in commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune. Read more: How our ping pong startup hit a $50M valuation in 5 years by tapping into automation How we built our bootstrapped startup different and sold it for $40M. (Hint: We ignored some myths) In 6 years I've bootstrapped my moving company to $100M in revenue. Avoiding VC funding has been key This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
