Critical minerals like lithium, nickel, and cobalt are the building blocks of the 21st century economy and essential to the global energy transition. As demand has grown for phones, data centers, EVs, AI computing power, and other modern technologies, so has the demand for critical minerals to build and power them. Current production is insufficient, and supply chains are overwhelmingly controlled by one adversarial nation.

TechMet is an investment company whose mission is to increase and diversify the global supply of critical minerals. The company currently has a portfolio of ten projects across four continents that responsibly produce, process, and recycle the materials needed to supply the global energy transition.

TechMet's Chief Technical Officer Simon Gardner-Bond will discuss the current state of the critical minerals sector, and an investor’s view of how to approach the challenge of effectively allocating capital considering the constantly evolving landscape of new technologies, shifting demand and supply characteristics, and the unique challenges associated with building these long-term, capital-intensive projects.

Waste recycling and resource preservation are two key challenges related to planetary limits faced by humanity. They encompass organic and inorganic materials such as CO2 produced from hydrocarbon combustion as well as strategic metals contained in end-of life technological devices. Practically, the challenge relies in eco-efficiently turning waste to resource, with the lightest footprint and cost.

Waste material is generally a complex molecular mixture whose conversion into resource requires mastering selective self-sorting in mild conditions.

This presentation will show how academic investigations at the interface between organic, organometallic, supramolecular, analytical chemistry and electrochemistry, by exploring self-assembling processes within complex organic and organometallic dynamic molecular system, has revealed that organic species generated by CO2 capture can be upcycled i.e. provide a high value service of eco-efficient metal extraction from lithium-ion batteries waste material.

This fundamental knowledge, and the underpinning disruptive concept, have led to the design of the first CO2-powered metal separation process which is currently scaled up by our spin-off company MeCaWaRe SAS (60 employees) at the ton scale and is intended to be deployed at horizon 2027 in the first eCO2-efficient battery recycling plant.

As the 2020-2023 VC boom around climate tech recedes into the distance there are some clear lessons and ways forward to consider around how to finance and develop key renewable technologies.

Drawing on his experience as Founder of Carbon13, the most active pre-seed climate tech investor in Europe during 2021-2023, Dr Coleridge will discuss how we urgently need to address certain aspects of the financing system for regenerative technologies, and propose some solutions.

Electrochemical energy storage devices can offer a number of great potentials for meeting future energy demands, such as of renewable energy, electric vehicles, portable electronics, that require high energy density, high power density and long cycle life.

Among the various electrode materials available for energy storage devices, graphene, a one-atom thick two-dimensional (2D) sp2 carbon structure, has attracted considerable interest as a next-generation carbon material owing to its large surface area, high electrical conductivity and good mechanical/chemical stability.

At first, high quality graphene should be synthesized to possess large specific surface area with high electrical conductivity similar to the pristine graphene. Then, the surface area of graphene should be maintained even after the electrode fabrication process, in order to achieve the large electrochemically active surface area. In addition, the conductive networks as well as pore channels between graphene nanosheets should be effectively developed in the electrode for fast ions/electrons transfer. Therefore, the graphene-based materials should be designed to possess suitable nano-/macro-structure in the electrode for achieving these aims.

In this presentation, we report on the strategies to effectively exploit graphene-based electrode materials for energy storage devices. More details will be discussed at the meeting.

Sigma Lithium have developed an advanced Li metal anode (3D-Li) technology utilising non-wove carbon scaffolds sourced from recycled carbon fibres.

Batteries with 3D-Li inside demonstrated better safety and cycle life along with higher energy and power density against current state-of-the-art.

Sigma Lithium is now working with Gen2Carbon to optimise the composition of the carbon fibre scaffold for improved battery performance, while creating a sustainable product from recycled carbon fibre materials which would otherwise have gone to landfill.

Applications for carbon fibre have evolved from those where its exceptional mechanical properties and low density enable lightweight, high-performance in the aerospace, automotive and sporting goods industries to those where its corrosion resistance, electrical and thermal properties are used to enable clean energy solutions.

However, unlike transportation applications where the high environmental impact of producing virgin material is offset by in-life fuel savings, there is no offset and so using carbon fibre comes with a high-environmental price.

There is a large and ever increasing amount of carbon fibre waste produced each year which today is consigned to landfill. In this presentation, we show how new, efficient recycling solutions allow this carbon fibre to be recovered and converted into materials that form the basis of advanced clean energy solutions—bring environmental, cost and supply chain security benefits.

World’s major population growth until 2050 will be in the Southern Hemisphere, which has scarce soluble potassium sources, however, there are abundant insoluble potassium sources in the form of K-feldspar, the main mineral of igneous rock.

Feldspar is continental Earth’s crust most abundant mineral, about 60% by weight and huge K-feldspar deposits have been discovered that are often already close to agricultural areas that have transportation challenges for traditional fertilizer.

Therefore, access to potassium from insoluble K-feldspar is of strategic importance, especially for countries from the Southern Hemisphere and could deliver huge economic value and social benefit for poor countries with good agricultural land.

This session will explore holistic approaches to sustainability and circularity within India’s rapidly evolving electronics sector. With a broad lens, it aims to spark meaningful conversations among top level executives and sustainability leaders, encouraging active participation and collaborative dialogue.

The discussion will cover strategies adopted by companies to embed sustainability in product design, supply chain optimization, and end-of-life management. Attendees will also address current challenges in achieving circularity, especially regarding policy frameworks like EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility). Emphasis will be placed on the gaps in compliance, innovative collection and recycling mechanisms, and the importance of multi-stakeholder partnerships in closing the loop.

This session aims to foster actionable insights and cross-industry collaborations to drive regulatory alignment and build a truly circular ecosystem in India’s electronics space.

This study leverages machine learning to design new technologies for producing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene through electrolysis in molten salts. The objective is to obtain cost-effective, high-quality materials suitable for diverse applications. For multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) production, both non-stationary and stationary current regimes are utilized.

In graphene synthesis, methods involving constant and reversing cell voltage, as well as constant and reversing overpotential, are explored. The electrolysis process offers environmental and economic benefits, allowing precise control over parameters such as applied voltage, current density, temperature, electrolyte type, and graphite material. To determine the relationship between these parameters and material quality, explainable tree-based machine learning (ML) models are trained using data labeled by domain experts.

The rules extracted from these models guide optimal production, yielding high-quality materials that are up to ten times more cost-effective than those produced by existing technologies. This advancement contributes to the development of affordable, high-quality carbon nanomaterials for a wide range of applications.

Food, air and water are essential for life, and notwithstanding the consequences of war, technology and science have enabled a population of some 8.2 billion humans to be nourished, in contradiction to the predictions of the Club of Rome. Dramatic increases in food production became possible with the introduction of agricultural machinery that relies on steel, as does the manufacture of medicines.

However, we currently are using indecent quantities of steel with the associated and pernicious CO2 cost which has the greatest consequences for the poorest in the world. I will explain how to reduce the consumption of steel by 25% over a period of four years, without causing pain to industry or society. And no research or development is needed to achieve this.