Metalplant

We've got a special treat for Metalplant's supporters to celebrate our successful processing of our hyperaccumulator plant biomass into pure nickel products. We are making available to the public some small quantities of hyperaccumulator plant-derived nickel HyperNickel?, carbon dioxide removal credits through enhanced rock weathering HyperWeathering? CDR,?and the combined product of the two a carbon-negative nickel, NegativeNickel?. And as a bonus (scroll down on page) and you'll see Silicate Valley Olivine? Standard material, we have released some "Founders Edition" options that comes with comes with a stand as part of the "standard". Also have some small pocket ones available for fun :) We have made available for sale: - NegativeNickel? : Carbon-Negative Nickel with the Carbon Removal from Enhanced Rock Weathering (Salt or Ingot), (1Ni:200CDR ratio) - HyperNickel? : "Green" Nickel Salt or Ingots Produced by Hyperaccumulator Plants - HyperWeathering? CDR : Carbon Dioxide Removal Credits produced through Enhanced Rock Weathering combined with Phytomining. - Silicate Valley? Olivine Standard Founders Edition: Olivine specimens hand-selected by a founder of the company from our quarry and innovation hub surrounded by silicate minerals that we call Silicate Valley. https://lnkd.in/e9VCpKMU

We had the pleasure last year to have the writer Diana Kruzman come to Albania to see our phytomining farms, olivine quarry, and olivine river and the story was jut published in American Chemical Society. While phytomining and producing battery-grade nickel from plants is itself an interesting topic, as touched on in the article, the origins of Metalplant are actually related to solving the problem of the nickel released during the enhanced rock weathering (ERW) of olivine. While solving the nickel problem in ERW by integrating the two technologies on the naturally nickel-bearing soils the hyperaccumulators are native to, we ended up inventing a now patent-pending method that also solved the depletion issue that was a major problem limiting the upscaling of phytomining. Phytomining was originally utilized as "phytoremediation" with the explicit intent to depelete metals from soils, but this becomes a "problem" when you want decades of consistent yields mining the soil. The end of the life plan for the farms is to remediate by continuing phytomining for years after we stop placing minerals, until then, we have unlocked the ability to phytomine these soils indefinitely, making the process sustainable and economically viable over the longterm. The baseline nickel production yearly from our plants is around that same 333 kg per Ha and our olivine quarry owned by Metalplant co-founder Sahit Muja has a mineral content of 80% olivine and 0.333% nickel. So, 100 tonnes of olivine placed in the farm field and fully weathered over time represents 100 t of CDR potential and 333 kg of nickel replenishment. Considering the depth of soil and roots, there are many years of nickel to draw from, but as the minerals weather they replenish the nickel while releasing the Mg++ cations that drive CO2 to become trapped in bicarbonate, enabling steady-state nickel production with CDR. We are motivated to innovate to drive the fastest, highest-density, ERW ever seen per hectare and being vertically integrated, operating our own farms, gives us the ability to directly make changes to the farming inputs that are not possible when on someone else's food crop fields. We are focusing our efforts on how to drive weathering faster through biotechnology and other methods, along with a focus on integrating state-of-the-art measurement and quantification techniques for ERW/CDR. Based on the stoichiometric ratios of nickel and magnesium in fresh minerals, over time the nickel will trend towards 300 t of gross CDR per t of nickel liberated. Due to the soil pool, time lags, life cycle efficiency, and other parameters, we are targeting an allocation of ~100 t of net CDR per t of nickel produced in the long run. We can sell both CDR and Ni, or produce NegativeNickel?, the world's first nickel with a carbon-negative footprint, which can be used to negate the full emissions in the production of an EV (10-20 t CO2/car), enabling them to be potentially carbon-neutral off the lot.

It is only a matter of time before the trade war comes for critical minerals, of which the US produces only a fraction of what we use. You may not think of them daily, but they are called "critical" for a reason, with nickel making up 10% of stainless steel and up to 90% of the highest-energy density (lightest) batteries needed for not just EVs, but for robots, drones, and everything China would cut us off from immediately in a war. However, it takes over a decade or more to open a new traditional mine in the USA, but with phytomining, we can open a new distributed nickel field in a matter of days and produce a nickel crop within months which would then be processed at a centralized facility in the US, keeping the entire chain in country. The US has over 10 million hectares of barren, nickel-rich soils that could be used for phytomining that are unable to be mined traditionally, without the help of nature. We're on a journey to deploy our technology in the US, backed by the US Dept. of Energy, with our plants currently in the country for the first time, and are looking to also expand to test sites in the European Union this year. Feel free to reach out if you are interested in learning more, want to collaborate, or otherwise see how you can support our mission.

Metalplant gets a mention in this story from the The Wall Street Journal on the work we are doing to bring our hyperaccumulator species to the USA, and how nickel phytomining is creating an opportunity to unlock a new source of nickel that will enable the US to not be dependent on China for this critical input to EV batteries and stainless steel: "Money doesn’t grow on trees. But soon the minerals used in the battery of your electric vehicle might. Worries about China’s domination of critical minerals are driving Western scientists and companies to embark on increasingly novel ways to develop alternative sources. One such effort seeks to exploit a quirk of nature: Certain plants, called hyperaccumulators, absorb large quantities of minerals, like nickel and zinc, from the soil. Cultivating these plants, and then incinerating them for their metal, could provide U.S. companies with a small stream of domestically sourced minerals—without the expense and environmental destructiveness of conventional mining. ... Meanwhile, an American startup called Metalplant is paying a dozen farmers in Albania to farm nickel using a local plant species. The company?is editing the genes of those plants to adapt them to the U.S. “This could shift how we think about mining in the future,” said Eric Matzner, the company’s chief executive. Some 10 million acres of?barren, nickel-rich soil are scattered around the U.S. In such areas, concentrations of minerals?are generally too low to justify large-scale mining, but could offer opportunity for inexpensive nickel farming.? In the case of nickel phytomining,?as such efforts are known, the plants are dried and incinerated, leaving an ashy nickel concentrate. This concentrate can then be?further purified and?turned into battery-grade material. ... But the funding for?nickel-farming plants is one small piece of a broad effort by the U.S. government to develop secure supplies of the minerals that are needed for defense and cutting-edge industry, and are an area where?China is dominant." https://lnkd.in/ee7yEUWG

When the Saudi Arabian Energy Minister says critical minerals are the next oil, you should probably pay attention.?And just as the last century's wars were often fought over oil and energy security, this century's wars are going to be fought over access to critical minerals and the control of processing. The beauty of critical minerals, though, is that metals are infinitely recyclable, unlike oil, once enough is produced it will create a fully circular economy by the end of the century. In order to get enough minerals out though, it is going to require a one-time (and final) acquisition of enough minerals to meet global demand. This is less mining and less negatively impactful to the planet than current oil and gas mining itself (not to mention emissons), but represents a massive opportunity of this century that will leave a postiive legacy and impact for centuries going forward, if it is done right. We need to make sure we do this responsibly and sustainably, not causing more harm than we are solving by transitioning away from ongoing fossil fuel mining. That is what we are focused on at Metalplant, the sustainable mining of nickel with plants on naturally nickel-bearing soils. An advantage you won't find with any other techniques is that we leverage the investment in the production of this critical mineral and use it to permanently remove over 100 net tonnes of carbon dioxide for each 1 tonne of nickel we produce. By integrating the enhanced rock weathering of olivine, we replenish the nickel in the soil over time, which enables indefinite phytomining with no nickel depletion for as long as is needed. If you are an inestor in the climate or critical or minerals space, an end user of battery-grade Nickel Sulfate, or interested in careers in our intersecting fields (CDR/farming/metallgurgy), feel free to reach out. We are about to expand our USA and European Union-based nickel processing capabilities and are seeking support https://lnkd.in/e7ViyYHE #criticalminerals #nickel #cdr #erw #carbondioxideremoval #tradewar #phytomining #hyperaccumulators #nickelhyperaccumulators #greennickel #lowcarbonickel #carbonnegativenickel #negativenickel #nickelsulfate

This is another shot across the bow in the brewing global trade war over critical minerals, and it looks like we're in for a bumpy ride this coming year. CATL batteries were just banned for use by any company with US government contracts. With CATL controlling 37% of global battery production (and another 17% by BYD), this should be another wake up call for companies to look hard at their supply chains in a way we haven't seen since pandemic-era disruptions. High percentages of nearly all critical minerals pass through China, with Chinese-backed companies dominating global procurement. In Indonesia, which supplies over 50% of global nickel, over 80% of operations are controlled by Chinese state-owned firms. Meanwhile, the US has just one active nickel mine, and its scheduled to close by 2030. With new mines typically taking 10-15 years to open in the US, we're looking at a serious problem. This is part of why the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) ARPA-E granted Metalplant funds to onshore our phytomining process through genetic optimizations and sterilzation of our plants. While the continental US lacks conventional nickel resources, we have vast untapped soils with nickel content mineable by plants, and phytomining farms can begin production within months, not years. With China already banning antimony exports and increasing scrutiny on graphite exports, the next retaliation could target nickel, and Metalplant is working to be ready. #criticalminerals #tradewar #nickel #CATL #phytomining #EV #batteries #evbatteries

Surprise dropping tomorrow, make sure to check back on the Metalplant page :) Edit: Postponed until Monday Oct. 28th.

Thanks to Unearthed for identifying Metalplant as a part of the next wave in mining innovation.

Metalplant is excited to have been featured in a story titled "Phytomining: How to mine metals from the soil using plants" in the German language newspaper Future_zone's Science section (google translate post link in the comments).

Metalplant's harvest came early this year, but it was bountiful! These plants contain tonnes of nickel phytomined from the soil. Stay tuned for more updates and photos next week.