Metalplant

Metalplant

Environmental Services

Metalplant specializes in Carbon Negative Nickel Farming, via enhanced rock weathering (ERW) and phytomining.

About us

Metalplant is phytomining nickel while removing carbon dioxide through the enhanced rock weathering of olivine.

Website
Metalplant.com
Industry
Environmental Services
Company size
11-50 employees
Type
Privately Held
Founded
2021

Employees at Metalplant

Updates

  • View organization page for Metalplant, graphic

    328 followers

    Metalplant is excited to have been featured in a story titled "Phytomining: How to mine metals from the soil using plants" in the German language newspaper Future_zone's Science section (google translate post link in the comments).

    Im malerischen, gebirgigen Norden Albaniens gibt es leuchtend gelbe Felder. Auf den ersten Blick erinnern sie an Rapsplantagen, bei genauerem Hinschauen erkennt man dort aber krautige, buschige Pflanzen, die man von anderen Feldern sonst nicht kennt – das Mauersteinkraut. Das Kraut zieht das Metall Nickel aus dem Boden. Nach dem Ernten und Trocknen wird die Pflanze verbrannt und aus der Asche dann das Nickel extrahiert. „Man weiß nicht genau, was der ökologische Vorteil für diese Pflanzen ist. Möglicherweise ist das ein Abwehrmechanismus gegen Krankheitserreger“, erklärt der österreichische Bodenforscher Markus Puschenreiter von der Universität für Bodenkultur Wien. Die Felder in Albanien gehören dem US-Start-up Metalplant, das dort ideale Bedingungen für den Anbau vorfindet. Einer der Firmengründer ist der Amerikaner Eric Matzner. Er bezeichnet sich selbst als „Klimakrieger“ und ist über Umwege auf die Nickel-Pflanzen gestoßen. https://lnkd.in/dT6Gu6pc #futurezoneat #klimaschutz #klimawandel #forschung #science

    Phytomining: Wie man mit Pflanzen Metalle aus dem Boden schürft

    Phytomining: Wie man mit Pflanzen Metalle aus dem Boden schürft

    futurezone.at

  • View organization page for Metalplant, graphic

    328 followers

    Introduction to Metalplant and our farms! Metalplant uses nickel hyperaccumulator plants to recover nickel from the soil, while removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through the process of enhanced rock weathering. Our current operations are in Albania on top of a 500 sq km massive of ultramafic rock where the soils naturally contain nickel and has mountains composed of magnesium silicate minerals like olivine and serpentine. The enhanced weathering of olivine for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is currently limited in application rates due to the release of nickel into the environment as the rocks break down. By operating the weathering process on naturally nickel-containing soils and then growing hyperaccumulator plants in the fields that can recover the nickel, we can remove large amounts of carbon with minimal risk to the same environment we are trying to save, while producing the metal nickel, which sells for $20,000 per tonne. We harvest the plant biomass and then process it to recover the nickel and get it all the way up to greater than 99% purity. Nickel makes up ~10% of stainless steel and is/will be used in long-range, fast-charging EVs due to its high energy density to weight ratio and anti-cracking properties. Currently, around 3 million tonnes of nickel are mined per year, but that needs to double by 2040 to not slow down the clean energy transition. Our process can produce the extra 3 million tonnes of nickel, while also removing 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. We can use this single stone to solve two of the world's most pressing problems.

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