Phoenix Tailings is a waste-to-metals company founded by MIT alums to change the face of mining of rare earth metals, nickel, and more from mining waste. Most rare earth elements, crucial for wind turbines, electric vehicles, and many clean energy technologies, are currently extracted exclusively in China, sparking national and economic security concerns in the US, as demand for them is sure to grow significantly. Despite this, the U.S. has important reserves of rare earth minerals left in mining waste, which had not been extracted efficiently and sustainably.
Phoenix Tailings is filling that gap. Its pilot plant in Woburn, Massachusetts, is the first in the world to manufacture rare earth metals without generating toxic byproducts or carbon emissions. The company’s process recovers the metals from waste in the presence of water and recyclable solvents, followed by heating and electrochemical processing. The method does consume electricity but the firm offsets this using renewable sources, which makes the process carbon-neutral.
With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program, Phoenix Tailings has expanded into a company that offers nickel and magnesium production technologies, in addition to iron production-from all these streams, as they are required for battery applications and other clean energy sources. The company is working toward developing methods to produce iron without emitting pollutants and will similarly convert other waste materials with high waste into valuable resources.
Launched by MIT graduates Tomás Villalón, Michelle Chao and team, the firm plans to scale up production to 3000 tons in 2026, which would translate to around 7% of last year’s total U.S. rare earth production. The firm is going to have a second production facility apart from its current Woburn facility while planning to have an additional sprawling network of sites for producing individual elements.
Villalón and his team are motivated by the urgent need to source crucial materials globally here, in a country, and in a sustainable way. Free from reliance on foreign sources, as wastes are converted into metal of further refined form. The refining of metals from waste addresses two of the major issues: the need for huge and unending quantities of rare materials for clean technology and the awful thing about mining wastes accumulation.
As the solutions in clean energy advance, Phoenix Tailings is exceedingly well-positioned to change the game of the metal supply chain by providing an environmentally-friendly alternative to the production of metals through traditional means. Indeed, in its radical methods, the firm gives a much-needed green vision in the sourcing of material inputs for the next generation of green technologies.