CU Boulder engineers have revamped a World War II-era process for making magnesium that requires half the energy and produces a fraction of the pollution compared to todayās leading methods.
The breakthrough process, developed in the labs of Professor Alan Weimer, could vastly improve production of the strong, lightweight metal thatās used in everything from vehicles and aircraft to dietary supplements and fireworks.
Now, CU Boulder spinoff companyĢżĢżis working to translate the laboratory innovations into a viable commercial-scale enterprise.
āIām doing it in the lab; Iām seeing the product and seeing the results,ā said Boris Chubukov, a graduate researcher in CU BoulderāsĢżĢżand one of Big Blue Technologiesā co-founders. āI know the potential is really there.ā
A few different methods currently exist for creating magnesium metal, but the most common one takes ore from the ground, combines it with expensive silicon and uses extremely high heatāaround 1200 degrees Celsiusāto create chemical reactions and extract the magnesium in small batches.
Recent CU BoulderĢżPhD graduate Aaron Palumbo, along with Chubukov and graduate student Scott Rowe, sought a better way.
They swapped cheap, abundant carbon for the silicon reactant and addressed flaws in the production process, landing on a system that requires much less energy. They also managed to extract magnesium continuously, rather than in batches, and eliminated the solid waste commonly formed.
°Õ³ó±šĢż, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, provided the $3.6Ģżmillion grant to Weimerās lab that funded the preliminary research.
The technology could have global economic implications. Metal smelting has increasingly moved overseas, mostly to China, in attempts to reduce the overall cost of manufactured goods. Until the late 1990s, the U.S. was a major world supplier of magnesium, but today, only a single domestic producer remains, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
But the Big Blue TechnologiesĢżfounders believe this new process could change the equation and theyāve secured almost a half-million dollars so far from backers who agree, Palumbo said. That includes a $225,000 seed grant from the National Science FoundationāsĢżĢż±č°ł“Ē²µ°ł²¹³¾.
āIn our economic projections, if you built a plant in the U.S., with current energy prices and fair, first-world labor wages and benefits, we could still produce magnesium cheaper than Chinese product,ā Palumbo said. āThe U.S. can only begin to ābring back manufacturing jobsā if there is abundant access to cheap raw materials and if we continue to lead in innovative developments for process technology.ā
Early this year, the fledgling company formed a partnership with Nevada Clean Magnesium, a publicly traded company, to further develop, test and improve the production method. Big Blue Technologies also won the āMost Impactā award at the Cleantech Open Global Forum in February, the culmination of a yearlong accelerator for early-stage clean technology startups. They also graduated fromĢż, the universityās startup accelerator, in 2015.
Big Blueās startup environment is decidedly hands-on. The researchersā basement lab is filled with ultra-hot furnaces and they often end the day with hands covered in grease and grime. But the trio is excited by the possibilities the technology holds.
āThe prospect of doing something real-world is very exciting,ā Rowe said. āTo be able to revive the metals industry in this country would be remarkable, so that had universal appeal for us as graduate students.ā
