How Activate Fellows Are Applying Deep-Tech Innovations to Reimagine Mining and Materials
Photo credit: Gus Marquez (Cohort 2023)
The next generation of mining and materials will be shaped by deep-tech breakthroughs and scientific innovation. Activate Fellows are working on a range of new approaches that can transform mine waste into valuable resources and establish new methods for extracting critical minerals.
We sat down with Activate Fellow Gus Marquez (Cohort 2023), co-founder and CEO of a stealth company that's working on a new approach in mine waste-to-value. As a licensed mining engineer with an MBA and MS in Environment & Resources from Stanford University, he explained why mining and mine waste are the biggest opportunities you've probably never thought about.
Mining is the backbone of modern civilization, yet it doesn’t always make headlines. The traditional view is simple: dig, extract, move on. But the future demands more.
Gus shared several aspects about mining that are worth a new look using an innovation lens.
Mine Waste is a Resource: The U.S. is covered in abandoned mines and waste piles—called tailings—that are usually seen as environmental problems. What if we treated them as untapped assets?
View New Mining Projects as Startups: The industry follows boom-and-bust cycles, making risk-taking difficult. How can we help incumbents rethink the process end-to-end while reducing operational risk?
Recycling is Mining: Every obsolete laptop, battery, and solar panel we recycle needs mining know-how to process and find new profitable end-uses for the materials we recover.
Nearshoring Metals, Onshoring Innovation: Instead of chasing full onshoring of mines, let’s partner allied nations with U.S. innovation to strengthen supply chains and economies worldwide.
Fertilizers for our crops, wires in our houses, vehicles on the road all come from minerals and metals mined from the ground. The mines of the future need to go beyond extraction. With new technologies, they can also give back: building industries, strengthening economies, and enabling the complex technologies of the future.
Collaboration Between Industry and Startups Accelerates Innovation
A partner organization of Activate, ICL Group, exemplifies the power of collaboration between industry and cutting-edge startups. The specialty minerals company has built out programs to collaborate with startups at all stages as it seeks to deliver sustainable solutions for global food, agriculture, and industry. ICL Group works with startups in several ways, from scaling up production to facilitating routes to market for a company to direct conversations with experts at ICL.
“Activate Fellows are the best people to speak with about how technologies and materials can change the world,” said Ziv Kohav, Open Innovation Lead at ICL Group. “We share this vision, and we can help accelerate it.”
ICL Group is currently looking to collaborate with startups in several solution areas: next-generation fertilizers and food additives; novel materials, especially batteries; and new applications for mineral chains. (Reach out to Ziv for more information!)
Activate Fellows Are Innovating Across the Spectrum of Earth Resources and the Mining Industry
Activate Fellows are working on breakthrough innovations that drive many important benefits: lowering energy costs, driving more efficiency in how we access and use metals and minerals, establishing new methods for recycling, improving sustainability, and more.
These are some of the innovators who are reimagining how we source some of our most important materials.
🌟 Still Bright (Jon Vardner, Cohort 2022) is transforming copper extraction with localized, cost-effective technology. Last fall, Still Bright was a winner of the World Economic Forum UpLink’s Sustainable Mining Challenge, which recognizes the most innovative and disruptive technologies around the world.
Lithios (Mo Alkhadra, Cohort 2022) is using breakthroughs in applied electrochemistry to extract lithium from untapped brine resources, and secured a $12M seed round last fall led by Clean Energy Ventures with participation from TechEnergy Ventures and GS Futures as well as Lowercarbon Capital and MassCEC.
Sunchem (Daniel Sun, Cohort 2022), BluumBio (Katherine French, Cohort 2022), and Vycarb (Garrett Boudinot, Cohort 2022) were selected for the inaugural cohort of the Rio Tinto Mining Tech Accelerator in partnership with Founders Factory, focused on decarbonizing mining.
More Activate Fellows to watch:
Brendan Smith (SiTration, Cohort 2020) is developing a solution for the low-cost sustainable extraction of critical materials in the lithium-ion battery recycling process.
Alexa Schmitz (REEgen, Cohort 2022) engineers microbes to cleanly and sustainably recycle rare earth elements in the United States.
Gus Marquez (Stealth company, Cohort 2023) is rethinking sustainable mining by developing technologies to upgrade mine waste into new streams of value.
Nate Good (RareTerra, Cohort 2023) provides simple, low-cost, environmentally-friendly biomining and concentration of rare earth metals from low-grade and waste materials.
Mert Akin (EELI Technology, Cohort 2024) develops advanced lithium extraction and purification solutions to enable sustainable and feasible lithium production from untapped domestic sources.
As you can see, the work of Activate Fellows isn’t just advancing science—it’s pushing entire industries forward. Activate is proud to support these entrepreneurs as they take on complex problems and turn them into world-changing solutions.
