Demand to retreat from copper to promote prices to new heights. As the global economy moves away from fossil fuels, it will be needed twice more copper The following years since humanity has been mined throughout its existence.
Still brightA New Jersey -based start -up, founded in 2022, believes that he has found a novel (and clearer) to reduce these expenses.
“The fact that we have already mined the easy small things and the fact that we need many other mines to come to production every year-Mila we like 60 mines-is seemed like a weakness, like there is no way to get there,” said Randy Allen, co-founder and chief executive of Techcrunch.
But a large fraction of this demand could be met if companies can export more copper than the ore that has already evolved.
Still bright has developed a new way of redemption of copper, which says it can recover almost all copper from typical ores without pre -treatment steps that lose up to 20% of the metal. It is quite effective that it could even be used in waste, the piles of rejection that still contain smaller amounts of metal that the mines leave behind.
“Any copper lost as a waste. We can really process it and take the back of the copper,” Allen said.
To enhance a single -digit production in hundreds of tonnes per year, Bright has increased a $ 18.7 million seed round, led by material impact and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the company told Techcrunch exclusively. Azolla Ventures, Fortescue, Impact Science Ventures and SOSV participated.
TechCrunch event
Francisco
|
27-29 October 2025
Even Bright’s technology allows her to extract copper without producing harmful pollution. When most companies are essentially burning the unwanted parts of the ore-liberating much of it in the atmosphere-they follow to illuminate the ores containing copper in a vanadian-based solution, which draws the metal from the ore. When the vanadium solution is spent, the company’s system uses electricity to regenerate it.
The core technology was inspired by a long -lasting energy storage type known as “vanadium flow battery”. In this, a vanadian -based solution that can be stored in large tanks is charged and rejected by flowing beyond a membrane.
“All this is a kind of events. The technical inventor, the Jon CTO [Vardner]He worked in two different projects, “said Allen, one for the vanadium flow batteries and another for the use of a grocery store to extract copper.” Connects the dots. One person happened to do both. ”
Bright’s articulated system will be able to install in mines that cover a series of sizes. Because the vanadian -based process works so quickly, the company’s equipment is much smaller than a standard refinement for the same amount of copper production. “Edit is in the order of the minute, up to an hour. This allows us to keep everything really small.”
The small size also pays financial dividends. Allen said Bright’s equipment is 70% to 90% cheaper than typical pyrometallic tools. Currently, the company’s process costs about the same to run as a typical refinery, but Allen expects it to change. “There are many opportunities to be cheaper,” he said.
Bright also plans to build a demonstration unit in 2027 or 2028 that is able to produce 500 tonnes of copper per year. It is a big jump from the current pilot scale, which makes 2 tonnes per year. The final commercial scale system will produce 10,000 tonnes per year.
However, the clock. Bright would still like to start refining copper in several large quantities to benefit from any Trump president could impose metal imports. If it happens, it can use this revenue to develop and develop commercial scale units.
“We see ourselves that we have a path to be one of the cheapest copper producers,” Allen said.
This article has been informed to correct the name of one of the investors. Azolla Ventures, not Apollo Ventures, has invested in still bright.
