Rio Tinto invests in Supra for gallium and scandium recovery
US startup Supra Elemental Recovery has announced an investment from Rio Tinto and Founders Factory through their mining technology accelerator.
The investment, structured as a combination of cash and in-kind services, will enable Supra to build and commercialise its modular critical mineral recovery technology with support from Rio Tinto. Supra is initially focused on gallium and scandium, two elements vital to the semiconductor industry which the US is currently 100 percent import-dependent on, with China dominating the critical minerals market.
Supra pumps waste through proprietary, reusable, sponge-like cartridges that selectively capture and release the minerals in sequence, with the potential to recover billions of dollars worth of critical minerals that are trapped in domestic waste streams. Compared to incumbent refining methods, Supra's approach is said to enable 100 times greater selectivity and speed, enabling higher purity and lower costs, according to early test results. The technology is also said to be non-toxic.
Supra was selected as one of six startups globally from more than 500 applicants. The cohort is focused on advancing exploration and processing technologies to meet growing demand for materials such as copper, lithium, and critical minerals. Supra joins Foresight Spatial Labs (Ottawa, Canada), Chemshift (Calgary, Canada), Material Difference (Cambridge, UK), Voluna (Boston, US), and Watergenics (Berlin, Germany).
Jordan Sessler, co-founder and COO of Supra, said: “We look forward to working closely with Rio Tinto and leveraging the firm’s global expertise to accelerate our path to commercial deployment. We look forward to recovering high-purity elements from complex streams, including ore, tailings, and byproducts.”
Rio Tinto and Founders Factory join Supra’s existing pre-seed investors, including Crucible Capital, Climate Capital, Portmanteau Ventures, and UT Seed Fund. The funding will support continued technology development and preparation for commercial pilots.
