Between the AI data center boom and economy-wide electrification, the world will need a lot more copper. By 2040, copper supplies could fall 25% short of demand. That’ll be a tall order for the mining industry, which boosts production mostly by opening new mines, which is a costly, luck-driven endeavor.
Typically, just 0.3% of prospective mines pan out. A new wave of critical minerals startups have been working on new ways to squeeze more copper out of existing mines using biotechnology, mostly by focusing on heap leaches, where microbes help separate minerals from waste. Endolith has created “Olympic caliber” microbes, Ceibo is working on its own strains, and Transition Metal Solutions has developed prebiotics to boost microbial activity.
Giraffe Bio is taking an alternative approach. The startup develops mineral-specific chemicals to help mines recover up to 5% more copper. In mining, that amount “is really very material,” Alejandro Buffo Sempé, co-founder and CEO of Giraffe Bio, told TechCrunch.
Most would be happy with an additional 1% to 2%. The startup says it can extract more copper because it’s able to engineer compounds specific to each mine’s mineral content. To bring the technology out of the lab, Giraffe Bio recently raised a $6.4 million seed round led by Orion Industrial Ventures, with participation from BHP Ventures, Twynam, Air Capital, and Baruch Future Ventures, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
Rather than douse ores with bacteria thought to facilitate copper extraction, the company grows engineered microbes in a bioreactor to produce the bespoke compounds. Those chemicals are then inserted into a mine’s existing process. The startup is beginning with copper, but it says its platform can be tailored to other minerals, too.
The startup’s compounds are used in a mine’s flotation process. In flotation, chemicals help minerals either float or sink in a bath of water, allowing the operators to skim the desirable minerals off the top. The tighter the chemicals bind to the minerals of interest, the more that can be recovered.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
