2024 climate tech companies to watch: Ceibo and its copper mining technology

The remaining 80% of the world’s copper comes from copper sulfide ores, which are poorly soluble in acid. To extract this copper, the industry uses a more energy- and water-intensive process that involves concentrating the metal in vats of chemicals before smelting it at high temperatures.

Ceibo is refining its lower impact leaching process to work on copper sulfides. The company’s chemistry-based approach mimics how naturally occurring microbial communities release copper from sulfide ores, but at an accelerated rate. By changing the conditions in the rock heap, including pH and oxidation state, Ceibo technology enables the recovery of over 70% of copper. Companies that already mine copper oxides can connect the company’s technology to their existing infrastructure without costly upgrades.

Ceibo is in the process of testing its technology in cooperation with key players in the mining industry. The company also raised $36 million from clean energy and mining financiers, part of a growing trend of investments in startups looking to process copper sulfides through leaching. Prominent among these startups is Ceibo, which is headquartered in Chile, the world’s largest copper producer. This could give the company a home-field advantage as it seeks to build partnerships with major industry players and scale its technology quickly.

Key indicators

• Industry: Mining
• Founded: 2021
• Headquarters: Santiago, Chile
• Noteworthy fact: Ceibo began offering dust removal services to copper miners under a different name, Aguamarina. Dust pollution is a major challenge for the copper industry.

Impact potential

While the cleantech sector’s appetite for copper is expected to increase, the mining sector has not kept pace. With many top-grade ore deposits already depleted, analysts predict a potential copper shortfall of more than 10 million tons per year by 2040.

Releasing potentially huge amounts of copper tied up in sulfide ores that are currently uneconomic to mine could be key to closing the copper supply gap. Ceibo aims to produce one million tonnes of copper per year over the next 10 years and plans to expand further in the future. At this scale, Ceibo’s relatively lenient approach to copper processing could help clean up the industry.

Reservations

The idea of ​​using acid to leach sulfide ores is not new; Scientists have been trying for decades to develop a scalable and cost-effective way to achieve this goal. The problem is so well known that industry insiders sometimes call it the Holy Grail of copper mining.