Dear all

Another heavy « double month » issue covering the period in which we thankfully had our 6th edition of World Materials Forum with many of you present and some great speakers connecting during their night from Australia, California and Japan…

Especially this time, we would like to highlight the news from « our » start ups as we nominated 60 start ups world wide during the 4 editions of our WMF Start Up Challenge and we had 15 out of 60 displaying great news over these past 2 months varying from new product launch (Citrine Informatics - USA), key customer trials (B Comp - Switzerland, Cycladex - USA), venture program (Brimstone Energy - USA), fund raising (Carbios - France, Radical Plastics - USA), grant allocation (Nelumbo - USA), awards (Cypris Materials - USA, Keey Aerogel - France, Safi Organics - Kenya), press coverage (Spin Ion - France, UbiQd - USA, Woodoo - France), go public transaction (GrapheneMG - Australia) or company sale (Vaporsens - USA).

Lots of news as well and as usual in the field of critical materials: the conclusions of WMF Opening session of course as well as news on the battery side (new European capacities or Tesla next generation) and perspectives on rare earth (Flooding in China or Funding/Listing for MP Materials in the US), lithium (now recognized as critical by EU), copper (Goldman Sachs survey), or even ore (progress on Nimba).

Further on the scientific front with a variety of innovations in order to purify water with sunlight (Monsah University), extract rare earth from acid mining drainage (Penn State), make fuel cells cheaper and longer lasting (University of Copenhagen), increase electrical capacity of copper wires (Oak Ridge National Lab), or even develop some new electronics so called plasmonics (Tohoku University).

On the sustainability front, we picked 3 examples: Amazon investing in battery recycling, Collaboration of 9 nations (Canada, China, Chile, Finland, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden) to develop Zero emissions EV production/infrastructure and University of Toronto’s survey conclusions on changing vehicle ownership/usage patterns and big cities designs on top of supporting conversion to EVs.

Finally please note the dates of WMF 2021: June 15-17 - as always in Nancy

Wishing as always that you enjoy the reading.

Victoire de Margerie & Philippe Varin

B Comp (N 2018), September 1st:
Mc Laren tries flax as a replacement for carbon fiber

Brimstone Energy (Grand Prix 2020), September 26th: Brimstone joins Chevron Ventures Program

Carbios (N 2017), September 17th:
Key achievements in H1 2020

Citrine Informatics (Grand Prix 2017):
Launch of the Citrine AI Platform

Cycladex (N 2017), July 28th:
Gold leaching trials show lower capital and operating costs for cyanide free process

Cypris Materials (N 2020), August 25th:
Runner up Ray of Hope prize for Cypris

GrapheneMG (N 2020), August 20th:
LOI with Cuspis Capital in order to go public

Keey Aerogel (N 2017), September 2nd:
SICLA technology, one of the 1000 solutions to change the world according to Solar Impulse

Nelumbo (N 2020), August 4th :
2 M$ funding from California Energy Commission to improve heat exchanger performance

Radical Plastics (N 2020), September 4th:
2,3 M$ raised in equity

Safi Organics (N 2019), September 13th:
Platinum Award for Safi Organics in the Impulse Program

Spin Ion (N 2020), August 20th:
French start ups cover the whole spectrum of spintronics

UbiQd (N 2020), September 24th :
Quantum dots for powering skyscrapers

Vaporsens (N 2017), July 31st:
Gentex acquires Vaposens for 10,5 M$

Woodoo (N 2017), August 11th:
Hybrid wood - bio sourced polymer composite used as a construction materials with much lower energy consumption than cement, glass or metal

Reuters, August 13th:
Gear Up at European Battery Makers

Nikkei Asia, August 24th:
Flooding slams rare earth production in China

World Materials Forum, August 27th:
Conclusions of WMF Opening Session, on Critical Materials

Mining, August 31st:
Progress on Iron Ore Nimba development

Reuters, September 3rd:
EU ads lithium to list of critical materials

CNBC, September 7th:
An interesting view on copper perspectives

Ars Technica, September 24th:
A thorough review of materials options for Tesla next generation batteries

LA Times, September 25th:
Further on US strategy for rare earth

Chemical Engineering, September 30th:
Northvolt receives funding for world-scal LIB recycling, capacity expansion

Science Daily, August 5th:
Improving Acid Mine Drainage at Penn State in order to extract rare earth

University of Copenhagen, August 24th:
A new catalyst for cheaper and longer lasting fuel cells?

Tohoku University, September 7th:
Paving the way for tunable plasmonics

Green Car Congress, September 27th:
A composite that increases the electrical current capacity of copper wires at Oak Ridge National Lab

Forbes, September 28th:
Using sunlight and MOFs to purify water at Monash University

CNBC, September 17th:
Amazon invests in battery recycling

Green Car Congress, September 17th:
9 nations collaborate to develop Zero emissions EV production and infrastructure

Phys.Org, September 28th:
Not only EVs but changes in vehicle ownership/usage and new cities designs are needed according to new survey by University of Toronto

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