The Future of EVs Is Here: By Rethinking Recycling

The Future of EVs Is Here: By Rethinking Recycling

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Hello friends you are watching the brand new episode of The Green New Perspective podcast here goto place when you want to learn about Innovations in Tech and if you want to discover marketing strategies that are fueling growth in this space in today's episode we are talking about the challenges related to the extraction of lithium nickel and Cobalt critical minerals when we're talking about making of batteries for EVS but they are also related to a number of problems like high costs environmental issues and geopolitical tens my guest today is Mahesh kunduru he's the CEO of Dallas based company momentum Technologies and their Tech is recovering critical minerals from waste offering a sustainable alternative to mining so we're going to talk about how they went from a small lab to a worldclass demonstration plant we're going to explore the balance between Innovation and sustainability and we're going to see how today's waste can power the future enjoy [Music] welcome to the green perspective podcast dun thank you so much for having me can you introduce yourself tell our audience a bit more about your background and how momentum Technologies came to be yeah great well my name is mahes kunduru I am the CEO for momentum Technologies my background I've been in the industry for about 24 years I broadly been around the material science power environmental science uh industry segment um in terms of Education of a PhD in chemical engineering on MBA from MIT I have had I think about the last 14 years of my life I've spent some of that as an investor the rest as an operator in the sense that I've been helping companies take Technologies from concept to commercialization in some cases taking companies from uh a distressed state to profitability as well and all of this has been around broader Material Science decarbonization clean tech agenda as you might say people may call it these days you that's a little bit of my background in terms of momentum and how it came about so momentum was founded by a couple of orinary Founders Preston Bryant and uh Rob Miles Preston was looking to have an impact on the critical mineral space and he ended up partnering with the principal investigator at one of America's Premier resource Laboratories called okis National Lab uh so he partnered with a principal investigator there called Dr rames B and they ended up getting into an exclusive licensing agreement for a technology that Dr P and his team had initiated at oid and so Preston took that and started using that for railroad magnet Recycling and the beauty of that was the technology could be also used for liing iron battery recycling and that's how momentum came about and it was formed about 7 years ago I believe and raised some institutional capital in December 2021 it's headquartered in the Dallas for area we've just finished commissioning a world class laboratory and a demonstration platin there that your team is very proud of so we're excited to be in the space we believe the whole supply chain for critical minerals recovery is of utmost importance for Global Mobility Global use of handheld devices storage and power and everybody from our team is very excited to be part of that so the lithium battery industry as we know is is PIV for Ev adoptions so how do you see it evolving and what's the company's role momentous role in shaping its future yeah again great question so as you know the the whole Trend towards electric where adoption has been at the Forefront of the news at least in The Last 5 Years there was a huge I guess increase in uh excitement around the covid time and then you're seeing a little bit more temper uh sentiment these days we 2024 at the end of 2024 I think at the at the base of this starting foundation for Ev adoption or at least the inventory of vehicles in the world is still quite quite small any growth in that is going to be great growth right so while the expected growth projected or forecasted 5 years ago was significantly higher I think even if you get to half of that in the next 10 years it's still going to be significant for everybody so from a long-term perspective myself and momentum we are quite bullish on this segment and we contribute a we believe a very valuable part in that Supply SLV value chain whereas you need these critical lithium Cobalt nickel obviously three of the more commonly mentioned ones there's other in there graphite copper and several others we believe that the supply for those minerals and metals is either captive to certain jurisdictions that are not friendly to the rest of the world number one number two maybe using unethical practices uh the third is probably a burdened by really cumbersome regulations that take a long time I'm talking about mining to go from a commercial ation to to get a start to go from permit seeking to production is a very long cycle so in that realm what momentum does is you know we help recover critical minerals from a lot of waste so we believe we contribute a significant portion to the supply of these materials and we while we're seeing that there is going to be projected growth in that so we're quite excited to be you know a part of that very critical Ving like kind intended yeah well you mentioned this Clos look contribution to Environmental sustainability but what are the long-term sustainability goals for momentum how do you plan to achieve them yeah again look sustainability is is a is a interesting word can be used in many ways right for us like you said one way to look at sustainability is to use as little as possible of resources that are hard to find or hard to replace and number two is not to harm the environment thread which is important number three is just long-term liability of a business so that's how I look at it from from the different buckets and in all those categories we very proud of momentum is taking meaningful strides in making a strong impact I think from the first perspective of U being very careful and what we use for example on core technology eliminates the use of kerosene which is not good in terms of what a contamin produces a byproduct so we have a completely close system that eliminates harmful uh use of harmful ment and number two again our permitting is very very um simple we don't produce uh what people call you need to get an air source permit and uh we we we don't need a major air source permit because it's a Clos loop system is completely enclosed we reuse everything that is produced so very proud of that we use less water less power less reagents a long things theity perspective for us you know are the space where we offer flexibility on raw materials because the battery chemistry keep changing and so we believe we are um gearing ourselves to capture any of these changes on the raw material side of the product side uh and we're also offering flexible business models uh that will you know give you a great opportunity to have a sustainable business in this in the sense that between can have a long-term a longterm and a durable business and um your one of your recent Milestones is the second pilot plant which is quite significant so what does that mean for your company's growth we are in this uh segment of growth questions so I really yeah yeah I think look um for those of in the audience who uh who understand how technology adoption works and how technology growth works it's a very rigorous discipline Journey that is needed to get commercialization and we are very proud that we are well into that journey and getting close to commercialization we started off in a lab in the garage of one of the co-founders the classic American entrepreneur story we then built a small pilot in the garage and then we moved to a larger facility uh to have a demo plant which is what you're referring to and the scale from the lab to that demo plant that we just commissioned is almost 2,000 times and in between we obviously went uh you know another 10 uh a multiple of 10 lowers in scale to achieve what we call a very rigorous der risking of our technology so for us it's a great milestone demonstrate that this technology can scale uh We've understand we've understood the risks it still delivers strong unit economics and then that's where it matters and as a team we really understood and solve our challenges on the way which know which give us proprietary knowledge on how to tackle this industry in the particular segment that we're we're tackling on top of that we are working on having a commercial plan at Ohio which is about 10 times the plan V just commission Dallas area so that Dallas f is very helpful to learn a lot as we work on a detail engineering construction of that plant in Ohio so all of these have very nicely contributed to us in getting to this scale and then we're excited to grow beyond that where we're talking to multiple clients about multiple plants of that scale globally so I think we're we're it's quite exciting face for the company can you mentioned challenges so can you can you tell us more like what challenges did you encounter while building this plant and how did you all come there yeah me great question and so something we internally we talk about as a team is that when you're trying to get into a completely new industry it's very easy to stumble into problems that nobody ever has face because you're trying to do something completely new so it's very important that the team is resilient resourceful and can persevere to these challenges because you know you're first of the kind in solving something like this so for us in the team has been very resourceful in uh when they find problems they together as a team have gotten together and use the right brainstorming mechanisms to really find a resourceful solution themselves when they can and if not not try to approach experts in the market maybe adjacent markets that have a similar problem to solve that right so that's a way typically you solve science and engineering problem so I mean for us there have been know several in this space which which um is generally you know some of this is chemistry D some of this is mechanical enging driven some of this is chemical enging driven and I can tell you that our team is challenges in each of those functions that I mentioned and and we have successfully solved them and it has required multi functional expertise from different team members to solve that and which which has been very great to see um you know in fact you know this week our team is facing a new issue which is for example we get raw material from you know one of the big players in the space and and we found that the raw material comes in what people call Super saxs and we found that not every super sack has the same quality of material so the challenge then is we've designed an intake equipment for handling raw material in a particular shape and then the client was supposed to send that in a certain quality but didn't meet that quality requirements so instead of our team complaining to the client saying hey you didn't send the right one we found a resourceful way to take that and kind of change the process a little bit to actually get the first couple of campaigns done by you know kind of going away from a traditional use of what the coer is designed for and finding their own way to kind of take this material get into a form that you can actually transport it into the vessel and then do the rest of the process so it's been it's been great to see the team on that and he mentioned that technology is new so how have you approached educating the the market about your uniqueness and how is your technology basically better or maybe not better but different and how it can benefit your potential clients and partners yeah great question there's a multi-prong way to answer that I mean I'm let me start me a very high level typically in this industry which you know is adjacent to the mining industry especially you're recovering critical minerals that some most of the that needs to come from under the ground everybody points to low cost we want Solution that's low cost technology is great but what does it do for me in the end right so I think what's been beautiful about technology is that because of the Elegance of where it combines five steps into one step five conventional steps into one new step it automatically gives you look at low cost so for us when you tell clients you me by saying it's a lowcost elegant new technology solution it falls in the right years so not all the time people want to say it's a new technology then they'll like oh does it mean it's going to costum but in this case the Elegance of the technology lets us offer a solution that's very low cost so we solve that problem number one number two there's something in the industry about chemistry flexibility of batteries battery chemistries keep improving which also drives the cost down and also increases the life cycle of a battery the technology can tackle any of these TS which is fantastic so people solving that problem for people on the other side products because people use a certain Purity a certain state of a chemical to make batteries and there's different people call OEM original equipment manufacturers that have different specifications or specs as they say it instead of Reinventing the wheel telling them this is what we make we ask them what you need and we can make that because our process offers the flexibility of a product so that's the third problem we solve another problem we solve is a lot of these collectors of this used material is whether it's from batteries that that are producing these materials or end of life batteries captive material there and for them to get it to a client to buy it they have to transfer it across board ERS and that material is hazardous so you sometimes you need to get permits that are not easy to get it costs you a lot of money so we offer a solution where we come to you we put a plan right next to you so you it can eliminate the logistics complexity it's so when you go to clients and tell them where you ask them what the headaches are and solve them and that's a that's an easy audience in terms of uh receiv receiving new technology in a manner that helps you adopt it faster is a CEO with with an engineering background how invol are you in marketing and let's say storytelling of your company's relation and Technology yeah again great question I think look from a storytelling perspective it's a great story that our Founders have right I mean Preston started very young in his career it's a great American entrepreneurial story and he's it's a great Storyteller his personal story is a good one and our other co-founder Rob the CTO is you know has had seven startups before is successful so that brings a certain level of legi see to it and when I come in obviously having a advanced degree in engineering helps I've also been a CEO before I was an investor before at product development before so I mean all of that I've been fortunate to you know pull that into a good story on at least putting investors in client and E to let them know that myself and the team together are good stewards of capital good stewards of your product and raw material and we know what we're doing right uh because of the best breath of experience that we have so I mean that that kind of markets itself in a way for for better word and you mention you started as a pilot project so as you trans transition from Pilot project to full scale commercialization how does your marketing strategy evolves yeah good good marketing questions so um yeah the way I look at it is the the marketing strategy is different for different products you offer I mean it goes without saying right my previous year role we were selling what people call widgets and and systems so there's a there's a marketing philosophy and game plan for selling widgets and systems right because the check size are different the clients are different the the value populations they're looking for are different so you've got to adapt to that in this case we are selling a technology platform we're essentially selling a plant anding design to client right so I think we again a little bit early in our Market maturity but I think the four pillars that I mentioned to you is we ask clients what problems they face and one by one we list how they're solving them that's a very easy way to get people to understand what we are and how we solve their problem so innovating markets itself to do that and again to be honest yeah I thought this to be a little bit different than before and and how to get you know better brand recognition better adoption right so I think in a in a in an industry where you're marketing technology it's first thing I've always found is highlighting the technical depth of your team is very important all the way from the leader of the technical team to the breath function of your team and what we've achieved how the technical knowledge that we have taken not only put up the system but put up Publications intellectual property all of that brings capability in the industry where people are looking for Technology Innovation to drive adoption right so I found a key marketing aspect that you need to have in technology companies just highlighting the technical capabilities of your team not only internally but how third parties have already validated that right so that's where we do that I think that we've got a very good PR marketing lead Amanda Gilbert and our team and she done a fantastic job in really multipathing talking to multiple stakeholders in this segment that we are in which is an as industry there's a lot of stakeholders there's Regulators there's government officials there's industry Partners uh there's investors um and there's different Global players that have a stake in all of this so we really have been methodical in having Outreach and maintaining communication with all these stakeholders and and and highlighting to them how we are addressing these issues that are important to their on uh C constituents where they are um and then solving their problem so it's been I could tell you you know we've Tri SEO websites you know we I mean obvious this podcast good marketing tool and I think Amanda's done a fantastic job on a multi- channeling Market approach you mentioned regulations a bit Yeah so how do you feel that recent Global policy shifts impacted the growth in the lithium battery or recycling industry yeah I think I'm not sure you're referring to the recent election in America or globally how things are going but I think broadly speaking what what I would say is this is a nent industry that's very important to a lot of what human beings do around the world critical minerals go into Everything You Touch every day whether it's your handheld phone your laptop and the vehicle that you take whether it's your personal vehicle or a public vehicle and all of these are going to get better faster which means that demand's going to go up which means you need more of this critical minerals so the way we talk about this the way I personally talk about this is critical security is a nonpartisan issue globally right so I think it's our job to educate people that come in to understand that and you know we're we do our best in doing that and we've got good investors that do their part as well and educating people as needed but again to be honest a lot of the uh policy makers around the world have really gotten to understand the importance of crial minerals and we believe that's going to be positive going forward the next four years 10 years 20 40 years and what's next for for momentum Technologies you Mission plans is there anything else in the Horizon yeah great I mean I think look for as as I mentioned to you we have a platform technology which can go into multiple market segments right so for us let me talk near-term midterm and longterm in the near term our heads are down trying to get the commercial plant in Ohio up and running because that that's that will be profit generating and the sooner you generate the sooner you short the market that this actually makes money the better for everybody so we head down most of our ban is spent on that again the middle term we top into multiple people water build plants around the world so I mean there's people in Europe in US Korea Australia Asia that want to build these plans around the world so for us in the m in medium term we want to you know build you know about war plans in the next three years uh so we'll head down and focus on you know toing de clients and working with them to see how we can bring that to their facilities in the longer term we want to tackle the r of magnet recycling Mining tailings and hard metal waste market segments as well so that's something that is on our plate as well however we we need to augment our team appropriately to get there and we have a plan to get there in the next few years wish a couple of time couple of times here that um you have worked with many companies in the past and you know how difficult scaling can be so what advice could you give to other climatech entrepreneurs working to scale their Innovations in this competitive yeah look I mean my personal experience has been um across multiple market segments multiple type of products and again I'll cave out what see with this that what works for for the companies at aazad may not work for people in the audience however it's good to share your personal experience and say this this is what worked for us so I think in my previous CEO role we took a product A Material Science product from a lab of a professor to a big client in the Middle East that took you know a pretty methodical journey and as I mentioned earlier you can plan as much as you want about methodical drisking right so I think it's good to be disciplined about scaling and understanding risk at each scale don't skip those steps right I mean if if you can don't skip those steps sometimes you're under pressure to skip those steps but if you can afford not to skip it don't skip them you learn a lot your team learns a lot Market learns a lot and so you going from Lab to a pilot to maybe a larger pilot to commercial do your best to understand the risks there have the right multi-functional team capability on your team make sure the team is humbl to know that hey not one person can understand all the problems it's good to hear ideas from people with different experiences the third thing I would say is that move fast everybody says that and with something that I've learned even this my second CEO role which is sometimes people who have experienced that larger cooperations you know have a methodical way of doing things I think you need to combine that with speed from from an entrepreneur SP it's a delicate balance there's no oneid fits all but as a CEO if you're the CEO listening you got to understand what mindset is needed for what problem you're solving that week that month that year you got to really keep your eyes open and really step back and say hey what kind of mindset do I need to solve this problem and not one size spits all sometimes right so that's something that I've learned as well and again what I tell people beyond all the people and der risking issues is the number one role of a CEO that was taught well to me in my MBA class was to make sure you have enough money to pay right so I think the CEO's job is to make sure you raise capital one of the most important jobs and keep sure that you have enough to keep going so I would say keep your investors keep your partners to the Forefront all the time because that's very helpful I think the probably the most important thing is getting client validation very early in the process is very important I think so for momentum we're fortunate to have credibility from a very big third party from raw material side and a very big uh reputed third party for an oft agreement SES that IM mediately communicates to other clients that credible parties are taking a chance on you which is which is very important I think something that has been said in the tech industry sometimes applies to the material science Industry as well which is is nothing like client validation don't sit in your garage lab demo plan for too long tinkering start something show it to a client and see what they want ask the client what their problem is instead of you telling them here's a solution without understanding the problem right so that's another thing that is she needs to be at the top of the mind for everybody thank you just is an excellent answer hopefully our our um viewers Watchers listeners are going to be inspired and for for people who want to know to find out more about momentum get in touch with you to DM you or just want to you know know more about your industry where can they do that yeah look uh go to our website momentum. technologies.com I think my email is mahes momentum. technology Ry to reach out anytime and you know we're happy to work with you whatever what you're looking for and I'm happy to share my experiences and our team is there to help us you as well well thank you once again for for being our guest here on the green perspective podcast and I really wish you all the best with that plan plan opening and keep doing the great work you do thank you very much D have a great rest of your day and I appreciate being on there and look forward to um learning more about what you guys are doing [Music] thank you for tuning in to Green New Perspective this podcast is proudly sponsored by New Perspective we are a Boston based marketing agency working with cint declin Sol for over 20 years now and if you want to check out how we help our clean tech clients to grow you can click on the link in the description of this episode you like what we do here with the podcast giving some amazing amazing people from from all over the clean tech space a place where they can showcase their Innovative Tech game comment and climate change you can support us in so many ways you can leave previews comments or consider subscribing to our channel on your favorite streaming platform we've noticed that around 75% of you who are regularly watching our show are not subscribing so just by hitting that subscribe button you could help us to grow to get even more people from the climatech space and create additional content so please consider doing that thank you in advance and of course thank you for tuning in to this episode and hopefully I'll see you in the next one bye

2025-01-25 02:57

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