SiTration unlocks new sources of critical minerals to power the future by efficiently recovering them from dilute and complex mining, refining, and recycling streams.
THE CHALLENGE
SiTration needed access to capital-intensive equipment and prototyping space to prove their technology, but lacked the capital to commit to a long-term commercial real estate lease.
THE SOLUTION
The Engine provided the flexibility, lab and fabrication infrastructure, community, and programming that enabled SiTration to prove their technology and raise the funds needed to move into their dedicated industrial space in Watertown and launch their first pilot demonstrations with partner mine operators.
“The margin for error in Tough Tech is so small, you can't have anything slip. The Engine’s community, network, and resources allows you to really maximize your chances of success. It was a huge, huge catalyst for SiTration’s success.”
Brendan SmithCEO & Co-Founder
The energy revolution taking place in America is really a critical minerals revolution. Everything from electric motors to wind turbines to batteries and solar panels depends on minerals like copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earths. Even for conventional energy sources, these minerals are critical to expanding the grid to meet surging demand for electricity.
But while demand for critical minerals increases exponentially, the supply is flat. Conventional processes for mining and refining these minerals haven’t seen significant innovation in decades. Not only are these approaches inefficient and wasteful, they are also unsustainable, demanding enormous quantities of toxic chemicals and extreme heat to recover minerals from the ore.
To power our future, we need a more sustainable — and more productive — way to recover these critical minerals. Enter SiTration.
SiTration R&D-scale filtration cell, assembled and tested at The Engine
Using a fully electrified extraction process, SiTration collapses the conventional 10+ step process into just two steps: first, pumps push acidic mining streams through an ultra-robust silicon filtration membrane, concentrating even dilute critical minerals while simultaneously purifying the stream to recycle water or process acid. Next, target metals including copper, cobalt, nickel, and precious metals, are directly extracted electrochemically via patented silicon-based electrodes capable of unique selectivity and durability.
Brendan Smith, SiTration’s co-founder and CEO, likens the company’s ability to efficiently recover critical minerals to pulling out needles from a haystack: while the value of critical minerals in mine waste in the USA alone is estimated at over three trillion dollars, the haystack in this case is incomprehensibly large, requiring a game-changing solution like SiTration’s to make the economics work.
The vision is to unlock full-value mining. Today, many minerals are left untapped in mine tailings and toxic waste streams, simply because it would be too costly to extract everything of value. For example, say you have a copper mine. To extract other minerals like lithium or cobalt from your waste streams, you would need to add dozens of process steps unique to each mineral to extract them, which wouldn’t be profitable since these other minerals would be too dilute to be economically viable.
With SiTration’s technology, mine operators could efficiently remove all the valuable minerals from their ore and liquid waste — without adding expensive extra steps. Not only is the process more sustainable from an environmental perspective, but it’s also more productive and profitable for the miners.
SiTration got its start when Brendan Smith came to MIT from Canada in 2013 to earn a PhD in materials science and engineering. At the time, he wasn’t thinking of starting a company. But then he met Professor Jeffrey Grossman, and was inspired by his desire for real-world impact — not always common in academia. Smith started working with Grossman on water filtration, and the two developed the core technology for SiTration: the silicon filtration membrane.
The duo developed their technology over four years at MIT before Smith graduated in 2018. During a subsequent post-doc, Smith gained support from MIT initiatives to fund research projects that could turn into companies and create real-world impact. That led to an Activate fellowship in 2020, which catalyzed the founding of SiTration.
The team was ready to grow beyond their lab at MIT. At the time, they were paying to use the MIT Nano Lab, where they still fabricate and test their materials to this day, but they needed their own dedicated technical space to really prove out their technology. “Between the university and having your own space,” said Smith,” you’re so early in your company’s lifecycle. You have very limited resources; it’s a difficult challenge to secure your own space.”
Conventional real estate just didn’t make sense for an early-stage team like SiTration. “Depending on the lease, you may need to commit to 8-10 years for commercial real estate, when you only have money for one to two years. And it could take years to secure that lease. It's a huge time sink for early-stage founders.”
Jatin Patil (VP of R&D) and Heeyun Choi Kim (Materials Engineer II) running filtration systems to validate SiTratin's silicon membranes
That’s where The Engine came in. After securing early funding, SiTration found space at The Engine — conveniently located near their cleanroom at MIT and offering flexible terms. “You're paying on a monthly basis, so you have that very quick ability to pivot: you can expand, contract, you can move out... it's amazingly flexible,” said Smith.
These resources at The Engine were instrumental to proving SiTration’s technology — critical validation for any Tough Tech startup looking to raise capital. The machine shop, laser cutting, and 3D printing resources allowed the team to make custom system components, which they could test for weeks in dedicated fume hoods. They could work with acidic, heavy metal-laden toxic streams in the chem lab, a rarity among shared lab spaces. “The Engine manages toxic waste, which is a huge time and cost saver. Now we contract it out and it’s very expensive, the permitting takes a long time. But we didn’t have to worry about that at The Engine.”
Crucially, The Engine made specific accommodations for SiTration’s work. For example, the facilities team modified the HVAC system to accommodate a specialized ICP tool purchased by the company, enabling on-site chemical analysis. “If we can't analyze every single sample we make with a one-day turnaround, then we can't make decisions for the next test,” Smith explained.
Beyond the physical space, The Engine offered programming, advisory support, and a network of peers. “You have this DNA of investor thinking at The Engine, which is really helpful,” said Smith. “If you don't really know what investors are looking for, you could go in an inefficient direction and not find out until it's too late.”
“There’s always people who are a little bit ahead of you,” Smith added. “You can learn from their successes and challenges. The strategy of getting your stuff out there — in a plant, a factory, a mine site — takes years. Learning what’s worked and what hasn’t has been a critical part of the experience.”
With The Engine’s support, SiTration quickly de-risked their technology to the point where they could raise an $11.8M seed round, triple the size of their team, and expand to their own industrial space in Watertown. “The Engine afforded us the time and flexibility to do that,” said Smith. “It can take a year or two to secure a lease, get the build-out done, get all the permitting in place, get the insurance in place, and be ready to pull the trigger on the move. Months of delay is very common, but we could go month to month at The Engine.”
In addition to enabling their expansion into the Watertown space, SiTration was able to build a benchtop system at The Engine for their first on-site deployment at a copper mine in 2024. The system pulled out high-purity copper from waste streams that could be sold on the market. It was a small demo of only 10-30L per day, but it built trust with their mining partner.
“A lot of that was unlocked by those early days at The Engine, and now we're seeing the benefits of that as these relationships turn into much larger contracts, deployments, and the scale-up and productization process.” SiTration has since returned to the copper mine with a pilot system scaled up 100x for a 6x longer demo. The team is also initiating several new pilots with global partners in South America, Australia, and the US.
“The margin for error in Tough Tech is so small, you can't have anything slip. The Engine’s community, network, and resources allows you to really maximize your chances of success. It was a huge, huge catalyst for SiTration’s success.”
