Phinix Lands Research Grant to Extract Magnesium from Scrap

Phinix LLC, based at the University of Kentucky Coldstream Research Campus in Lexington, Ky., has been named one of 33 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) projects that will receive grant money from the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

The firm will split a total of nearly $66 million that the ARPA-E will spend under two new programs that seek to provide options to develop innovative energy technologies. Phinix’s grant is for about $608,000, which will be used to develop its electrochemical extraction of high-quality magnesium from scrap.  

The company says the technology it has developed could lower costs, energy inputs and emissions from magnesium production, expanding its use in transportation industries. By recovering and reusing aluminum-magnesium scrap, Phinix claims its technology can reduce the need to manufacture new, expensive primary metals while developing a sustainable and low-cost advanced manufacturing process.

Processing of aluminum-magnesium scrap to produce aluminum products used in beverage and transportation sectors is a key market driver for Kentucky’s economically significant aluminum industry, which employs more than 15,000 people in the state.