GoKawiilRare-earth elements might represent small slivers of the global metals market, but they’re big sticks on the geopolitical stage, where China wields its considerable heft as a bargaining chip during trade disputes.
Countries like the U.S. have started taking steps to reverse China’s dominance. New mines have opened, and manufacturers are popping up to make magnets and motors. But it has been a slow process. China built its position over several decades.
“The unfortunate part is that in order to be able to support an entire industrial base, you’ve got to have that whole supply chain node-matched in terms of capacity,” Zach Detweiler, co-founder and CEO of Radify Metals, told TechCrunch. He thinks one node in particular has been overlooked, the part that turns metal oxides into pure metals. “That’s this missing middle we’ve identified,” he said.
Most metal refining uses either heat or water (in combination with other elements) to strip metal oxides of their oxygen, leaving pure metal that’s easier to incorporate into alloys that make, for example, stronger magnets or more efficient electronics. Both processes are effective, but also highly polluting.
Another option has been known for a while, but it was considered too expensive to use in commercial production. It involves stripping oxygen using plasma, which is basically a superheated soup of super-energetic particles. The process’s only waste is water vapor.
Now, Radify thinks it has cracked the plasma problem through a combination of more efficient power electronics and some clever engineering to handle the metallic powders. It recently gave TechCrunch an exclusive look at its technology. The startup has raised just under $3 million from investors including Overture, Founders Inc., Mana Ventures, and Acequia Capital.
Radify said its reactor can transform a wide range of metal oxides. Today, it’s focused on dysprosium and samarium, two rare-earth elements that are key ingredients in magnets and electronics.
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