Episode 67 Megan O’Connor Of Nth Cycle – a big leap forward for metal & mineral recovery

Dr Megan O’Connor is the co-founder and CEO of Nth Cycle, a metal processing company that has developed technology to enable a clean, local, and streamlined supply of critical minerals for the clean energy transition.

We hear how Dr. O’Connor begged her professors at Yale to let her attend the Green Electronics Summit, where she heard big tech brands and manufacturers talk about all the risks and pain points they were up against as they tried to respond to increasing demand for tech, whilst reducing their footprints and improving sustainability.

The quantities of materials we need are mindblowing –for cobalt alone, Megan quotes figures of a 50% supply shortage by 2030.

Basically, we’ve found, and mined, all the easy-to-access sources of many materials, so we’re getting less of each metal or mineral from the same amount of base material.  In the shownotes, I’ve included a link to a report from the United Nations Int’l Resource Panel – Decoupling II – which highlighted these issues back in 2014. The report shows that for many minerals, to get the same quantity of metal extraction as a century ago, we now have to process about three times as much material. And of course, that brings associated increases in fossil fuel energy use, land disruption, chemical release and impacts on groundwater and freshwater.

Megan tells us how she came up with the idea for using electro-extraction, a technology developed by her co-founder for a completely different application, and how she then pivoted the entire focus of her PhD to develop this.

We hear about the different challenges in recovering metals from waste, and how the Nth Cycle technology solves these challenges in a more efficient and sustainable way than other recycling methods, such as hydro and pyrometallurgy.

Megan talks us through the range of applications, from e-waste to mining, and how the Nth Cycle technology is developed to be suitable for smaller-scale applications.