Slashing CO2CRISPR for metals.
Big Picture
Precious metals are the dirty open secret of the clean energy transition. Fast-growing clean solutions like hydrogen and EVs are turbocharging demand for scarce, costly metals that risk fueling human rights abuse. And regardless of supply chain or provenance, there just isn’t enough supply. Hydrogen growth alone could deplete the world’s supply of platinum and iridium in decades, quickly kneecapping decarbonization.
How it Works
Milvus is straight-up modern-day alchemy: their approach makes common metals behave like precious ones. Their novel, scalable method combines elements into “designer” nanomaterials tailored to any application. In this way, Milvus transforms low-cost, abundant metals into perfect substitutes for high-value but fast-dwindling ones like platinum and iridium.
Unfair Advantage
Milvus unlocks the proverbial transformation of water into wine. Replacing precious metals with abundant ones enables Milvus to undercut prices by orders of magnitude in multi-hundred billion dollar markets. In doing so, Milvus avoids the immense human, financial, and environmental toll of precious metal mining while ensuring an affordable, scalable, and reliable supply of inputs that are critical to global decarbonization.
80
Years’ worth
of global platinum supply remaining
ASSIA KASDI CEO & FOUNDER
Dr. Kasdi holds a PhD in Materials Science from Oxford and previously founded Oxmetics, an eco-friendly cosmetics company.
Synthesis of copper based nanowires for optoelectronics and electrochemical applications
Oxford University Research Archive
Why iridium could put a damper on the green hydrogen boom
Wood Mackenzie