Cheyenne, WY August 3, 2024 – Big Blue Technologies (BBT), a leader in magnesium production technology, announced the official commencement of a $2M project sponsored by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Vehicle Technology Office for the purpose of demonstrating sustainable and cost-competitive manufacture of automotive parts. The project is part of a wider $131M program wide funding opportunity to develop innovative and equitable clean mobility options, alleviating supply chain concerns for the automotive industry, and especially battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Magnesium metal was recently identified as a critical material by the DOE and plays a crucial role for vehicle lightweighting to improve fuel efficiency and increase BEV range.
“We are pleased the DOE has recognized BBT’s technology as a prospective and promising solution to magnesium metal’s dire supply chain issues,” said Aaron Palumbo, CEO of BBT. “Magnesium is irreplaceable as an alloying agent in certain aluminum products, and especially those used for auto industry. Likewise, magnesium alloys are the lightest structural metals that can be used vehicle light-weighting. Today, all primary, pure magnesium is sourced abroad, an indication that existing production technology is inadequate and uncompetitive. BBT is dedicated to proving it can provide a stable and cost-effective means of production to support domestic manufacturing. We’d like to give our official thanks to Aaron Yoccum, our program director at the DOE for guiding us through the process.”
On the heels of a $1.5M Series Seed round, led by nanoRANCH’s Nalin Kumar, BBT has an installed pilot production facility near Cheyenne, Wyoming that produces 100 – 200 pounds of metal per week. Using this pilot system, BBT has validated the technical and economic feasibility of its process technology for producing metal. With the new DOE funding, the process metrics can be extended to the manufacture of automotive components and parts.