INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Fusion startups have a difficult row to hoe
Their objective? To create a new type of power plant that produces more energy than it takes in something nobody has actually ever made with
That implies proving their innovation works, revealing it can be scaled up, and convincing investors it can all be done beneficially
Thats currently a tall order
But theres another huge difficulty that gets far less attention: where to get the fuel.Most blend start-ups will say that theyll be
producing their own fuel, thank you quite
That response glosses over an essential point: to make tritium one of the key active ingredients for blend they initially need a specific
isotope of lithium, one thats in really short supply today.That thought dawned on Charlie Jarrott a couple of years ago when he was working
at fusion start-up Focused Energy.I understood no one is working on this supply chain stuff
Theres a whole bunch of blend companies
There isnt a single company that is going to make the fuel for those business, he told A Technology NewsRoom.So Jarrott and his Focused
Energy coworker Jacob Peterson chose to set off on their own, founding Hexium with an eye towards fixing blends future fuel problems.Hexium,
which has been operating in stealth, emerged on Tuesday with $9.5 million in seed funding and $2.5 million in a credit facility, the company
solely told A Technology NewsRoom
MaC Venture Capital and Refactor led the round, with Humba Ventures, Julian Capital, Overture VC, and R7 Partners participating.Hexiums
essential technology utilizes a decades-old technique that uses lasers to separate isotopes of lithium
Atomic vapor laser isotope separation (AVLIS) was perfected by the Department of Energy in the 1980s to arrange uranium isotopes
However after investing $2 billion getting AVLIS all set to produce uranium for nuclear reactor, the Cold War ended and countless tons of
nuclear fuel flooded the market by way of old Soviet weapons-grade uranium.As an outcome, AVLIS sat more or less unused until a few years
ago, when Hexium got the innovation and modified it to arrange lithium isotopes.To do that, the start-up will utilize lasers that can be
tuned with picometer precision
The ones that Hexium will utilize are relatively low power were talking tattoo elimination energy, Peterson stated however their precision
allows them to connect with a specific lithium isotope.Like most components, lithium isnt just one setup of protons, neutrons, and electrons
In the wild, there are 2 stable isotopes: lithium-6, which has three protons, three neutrons, and three electrons; and lithium-7, which has
Each isotope has its own signature, so to speak, thats expressed as a wave function
Think of it like how different peoples voices produce different waves when visualized on a computer
Hexium tunes its lasers to interact with lithium-6s wave function alone.Itll simply blow right by a lithium-7 atom
Itll go undetected, Jarrott said.To different lithium-6 from lithium-7, the company will shine its lasers into vaporized clouds of the metal
When the laser strikes a lithium-6 atom, itll end up being ionized
The ionized atom will then be drawn to an electrically charged plate where it will condense into a liquid and diminish into a trough, like
beads of water on the outside of an icy glass.Hexium can then package the lithium-6 and sell it to blend companies, which will utilize the
metal to both breed tritium fuel and safeguard their pilot and business reactors from harmful radiation
When it comes to the staying lithium-7? Itll get sold to operators of conventional nuclear reactors, which utilize that isotope as a
protective additive in cooling water.Over the coming year, Hexium will be using its seed funding to construct and run a pilot plant
If all works out, Hexium will duplicate that style in modular fashion to produce anywhere from tens to numerous kilograms of lithium-6
We dont need to construct a center the size of a Costco or a football stadium, Peterson said
We can do it in a facility the size of a Starbucks, and we attain great economics at really little scale, and after that we just parallelize
our process.Update: Included extra details on seed financing.
