MIT molten metal production spinout Boston Metal has drawn funding from the Engine in its first publicly disclosed funding round.

Boston Metal, a US-based molten metal production technology spinout from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, obtained $20m yesterday in a series A round featuring the institute’s Engine startup incubator. The round was led by venture fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures and also included capital from VC firm Prelude Ventures. Founded in 2012 as Boston Electrometallurgical, Boston Metal is commercialising a molten oxide electrolysis (Moe) process which converts raw oxide metals into molten products by using electricity rather than a blast furnace. The spinout’s Moe technique relies on a cell filled with molten oxides specifically selected for the purpose of processing a given feedstock into its molten form. These oxides melt with the feedstock upon interaction with incoming electronics, leaving a fluid of the desired metal which can then be extracted from the cell’s base through a tap hole. Molten metals are cast by foundries to create solid metal products of the desired shape. Boston Metal currently operates a semi-industrial Moe processing fleet at its headquarters and will use the capital to drive construction of its first industrial-scale system at the same location. The money will also go towards scaling up Boston Metal’s technology, which it believes will win adoption as a no-emissions source of molten steel. Boston Metal’s co-founders include Antoine Allanore, associate professor of metallurgy in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Donald Sadoway, a professor of materials chemistry in the same department. Tadeu Carneiro, chief executive of Boston Metal, said: “Boston Metal’s Moe technology will offer the steel industry a modular, low-cost and zero-emissions solution for the production of high-tonnage steel. “Steel is and will remain one of the staples of modern society, but the production of steel today produces over two gigatons of CO2. The same fundamental method for producing steel has been used for millennia, but Boston Metal is breaking that paradigm by replacing coal with electrons.”

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