A Boston startup has emerged from stealth with the aim to transform industrial waste and seawater into critically needed minerals.
BlueShift, a climatetech startup operating out of Greentown Labs and MIT‘s The Engine accelerator, recently secured $2.1 million in pre-seed funding from ConocoPhillips, Ridgeline, and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.
The startup was founded by CEO Deep Patel, a former senior technical product manager at Amazon Lab 126 with a background in nuclear engineering. Patel said BlueShift has developed an electrochemical filtration system that can save production and energy costs for its customers.
“We’re building electrochemical systems to extract critical minerals, particularly nickel and rare earth, from coal ash and industrial waste streams now, and CO2 from seawater,” Patel said. “BlueShift is planning to be a mine value chain processor when the mining comes onshore in a decade, but we are starting with waste streams to scale our tech.”
The filter uses a membrane-free material that reduces and oxidizes molecules, similar to a redox flow battery, allowing it to deacidify water by removing carbon dioxide. Additionally, Patel said the filter can process coal ash and other industrial waste to extract valuable minerals like nickel and rare earth elements while removing carbon dioxide from seawater.
Nickel and rare earth metals, including copper, lithium and cobalt, are integral to manufacturing everyday items like phone batteries or electric vehicles. Reclaiming rare metals from domestic mining operations could reduce dependence on China, which controls most rare earth mining and processing operations.
