A cleaner path to rare earth metals

Tomás Villalón Jr. ’14 was raised in San Antonio, Texas, but vividly remembers smog hanging over the city his family came from—Monterrey, Mexico, a steel manufacturing and metal fabrication hub. Even as a child, he realized it was problematic to breathe that air.

2014届校友托马斯·维拉隆（Tomás Villalón Jr.）在德克萨斯州圣安东尼奥长大，但他清晰地记得他家族所在地——墨西哥蒙特雷市上空笼罩的雾霾，那里是一个钢铁制造和金属加工中心。即使在孩提时代，他就意识到呼吸那样的空气是有问题的。

“I’m motivated because I’ve seen what metal-making does,” says Villalón, who majored in materials science and engineering. He started thinking about sustainable metallurgy senior year while working at Boston Metal, an MIT spinoff focused on decarbonizing steelmaking.

“我之所以有动力，是因为我亲眼目睹了金属制造带来的后果，”主修材料科学与工程的维拉隆说。他在大四时开始思考可持续冶金的问题，当时他在波士顿金属公司（Boston Metal）工作，这是一家专注于钢铁生产脱碳的麻省理工学院衍生公司。

In 2019 he cofounded Phoenix Tailings, which has developed an efficient process for extracting rare earth metals from mining waste. “The mining ecosystem by itself makes over several billion tons of waste,” says Villalón, who serves as chief technology officer. (Others on the founding team are Michelle Chao ’17, Nick Myers, and Anthony Balladon.) “We have to get rid of this pollution.”

2019年，他联合创立了Phoenix Tailings公司，该公司开发出了一种从矿业废料中提取稀土金属的高效工艺。“仅采矿生态系统本身就会产生数十亿吨的废料，”担任首席技术官的维拉隆说。（创始团队的其他成员包括2017届校友Michelle Chao、Nick Myers和Anthony Balladon。）“我们必须消除这种污染。”

The company asserts that its proprietary electrochemical technique for processing rare earths generates no toxins and is carbon-free when fueled by renewables. Read more at www.technologyreview.com/alumni-profiles.

该公司声称，其用于处理稀土的专有电化学技术不会产生毒素，并且在使用可再生能源供电时是零碳排放的。更多信息请访问 www.technologyreview.com/alumni-profiles。