Five years from now, the world may start running out of copper, a critical mineral used in everything from data centers to electric vehicles. Without change, the world could face severe shortages early 2040with demand exceeding supply by up to 25%.
If copper looks expensive now, wait a few years.
Companies and investors have poured money into the sector as demand rises. KoBold’s starting mineral AI, for example, rose $537 million last year to exploit the copper deposits discovered in Zambia.
But with the help of some microbes, copper producers can now overcome this deficiency. One start, Transition Metal Solutionsaid to have found a way to boost copper production by 20% to 30% using additives to boost the performance of microbes. Try prebiotics for copper mines.
To expand the 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.
Microbes have always been a key player in the copper world, helping the metal come out of its mineral form so we can refine it into pure metal. Companies have been trying to get microbes to extract more copper from ore for years, but according to Sasha Milshteyn, co-founder and CEO of Transition, they’re doing it wrong.
Typically, companies isolate or engineer strains that show promise for improving copper production. They grow in large quantities and are poured into the ore pile, where the microbes soak and work.
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“Most of them haven’t paid,” Milshteyn told TechCrunch. “Often they’ll see an initial boost and then it just goes away — or they don’t see any boost at all.”
Milshteyn suspects that part of the problem is that microbes are not solo actors. It’s like a star cast without a supporting cast. Microbes live in diverse communities where everyone plays a role. Bumping up the population of one strain can only do so much.
Another part of the problem is that we have only scratched the surface in understanding the microbes in the ore pile. “When you look at the microbial community that’s in that material, usually more than 90% are things you’ve never seen before,” Milshteyn said.
The conditions inside the pile, as the so-called acid ore pile is, are difficult to replicate in the laboratory. The pH is low, about two, and there are clays and other metals floating around, all of which destroy the molecular tools scientists use to understand microbial communities.
“Everything the industry has done has been very focused on the small fraction that can be grown in the lab,” he said. “Usually, it’s in the 5% range that you can culture.”
So, instead of trying to isolate a few star players, Transition is trying to get the community to step up. The company uses low-cost inorganic compounds, which are usually found at mining sites.
“What we’re focusing on is not necessarily improving one or two species, but we’re trying to point the community to a higher functional state,” he said. “We have observed it in the lab.”
In the lab example that Transition has applied its proprietary cocktail, the startup has been able to extract 90% of the copper from the ore, up from 60% using traditional methods.
Outside the lab, Milshteyn expects efficacy to drop, though not by much. Traditional heap leaches extract about 30% to 60% of the copper in the ore. He thinks Transition can bring at least 50% to 70%, maybe even higher.
Each mine has a different microbial community, so Transition plans to create an additive based on initial testing. As the company collects more data, Milshteyn thinks that eventually he and his team will be able to predict what the mine will need in advance.
At that rate, the company’s prebiotics can address copper deficiency before it starts. But first, Transition needs to show the mining industry that the solution works. The company plans to work with a third-party metallurgical laboratory known in the mining world. “Without third-party results, no one will believe you,” Milshteyn said. The money from the seed round should cover the test phase.
After Transition has proven its work in the laboratory, it will apply the treatment to a demonstration pile containing tens of thousands of tons of material. With luck, it will then spread the technology to copper mines around the world.
“We’re leaving 65% of the material behind” in typical mines, Milshteyn said. “We probably got as much as we could.”
Update 8 am PT: The previous article referred to the Transition additive as a probiotic rather than a prebiotic.