Five years from now, the world may start running out of copper, a critical mineral used in everything from data centers to electric cars. If nothing changes, the world could face severe shortages as early as 2040, with demand exceeding supply by as much as 25%.
If copper seems expensive now, wait a few years.
As demand grows, companies and investors are pouring money into the sector. For example, AI minerals startup KoBold raised $537 million last year to develop a copper deposit it discovered in Zambia.
But with the help of some microbes, today’s copper producers may be able to overcome the shortage. One of the startups, Transition Metal Solutions, says it has discovered a way to increase copper production by 20% to 30% using additives that enhance the capabilities of microorganisms. Think of it as the prebiotic of copper mining.
Transition Metal Solutions has raised $6 million in a seed round to scale up its technology, the company exclusively tells 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.
Microorganisms have always played an important role in the world of copper, helping the metal break out of its mineral form and allowing it to be refined into pure metal. Companies have been working for years to induce microbes to squeeze more copper out of ore, but Sasha Milshteyn, co-founder and CEO of Transition, says they’re doing it the wrong way.
Typically, companies isolate or genetically engineer strains that show promise for increasing copper production. They grow them in large quantities and pour them over piles of ore, where microorganisms penetrate and start working.
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“It’s generally not rewarding,” Milshtein told TechCrunch. “Oftentimes you’ll see some uptick early on, and then it’ll just drop off a little bit. Or sometimes you won’t see any uptick at all.”
Milstein thinks part of the problem may be that microbes don’t act alone. It’s like casting a star without supporting characters. Microorganisms form diverse communities, each of which plays a role. There are limits to what can be achieved by increasing the population of a single strain.
Another part of the problem is that we’ve only scratched the surface in understanding the microbes in ore piles. “When we look at the microbial communities that are present in materials, typically 90 percent or more of them have never been seen before,” Milstein says.
A pile of ore containing acid is called a heap leech, and it is difficult to reproduce the internal conditions in a laboratory. The pH is low, around 2, and there are clays and other metals floating around, all of which mess up the usual molecular tools scientists use to understand microbial communities.
“Everything the industry has done has been focused on the tiny fraction that people have been able to grow in the lab,” he says. “Typically, we can only culture in the 5% range.”
That’s why Transition is committed to elevating the entire community, rather than isolating a few star performers. The company utilizes low-cost, primarily inorganic compounds already found at mine sites.
“Our focus is not necessarily on increasing one or two species, but on moving the community towards a higher functioning state,” he said. “We observed it in the lab.”
In laboratory samples to which Transition applied its proprietary cocktail, the startup was able to extract 90% of the copper from the ore, compared to 60% using traditional methods.
Outside the lab, Milshtein expects efficacy to be slightly reduced, although not significantly. Traditional heap leaching extracts approximately 30% to 60% of the copper in the ore. He believes the transition could increase that percentage to at least 50% to 70%, and possibly more.
Because each mine has a different microbial community, Transition plans to adjust the additive based on initial testing. As the company collects more data, Milshteyn believes it will eventually be able to predict what a mine will need in advance.
At that rate, the company’s prebiotics could solve copper shortages before they start. But first, Transition needs to show the mining industry that its solution works. The company plans to collaborate with third-party metallurgical laboratories known in the mining industry. “If you don’t have third-party results, no one will believe you,” Milshteyn said. Funding from the seed round should cover that stage of testing.
Once Transition is proven to work in the lab, the process will be applied to a demonstration heap containing tens of thousands of tons of material. With any luck, the technology could be introduced to copper mines around the world.
Milstein said that in a typical mine, “65% of the material is left behind.” “We can get as much out of it as we can.”
Update: This article previously referred to Transition’s additives as probiotics rather than prebiotics.
