Copenhagen-based Nordic Salt Cycle
has raised €3.5 million in pre-seed funding to commercialise its molten salt
technology for the cost-effective, scalable recovery of critical minerals from
sources such as electric vehicles, wind turbines and consumer products. The round
includes investment from EIFO, Denmark’s state-owned green transition
investment fund, existing investor The Footprint Firm, and German fund AnandaImpact Ventures.
Founded in 2024, Nordic Salt Cycle
is developing molten salt processes for recovering critical and strategic
minerals from end-of-life products such as electric vehicle batteries, wind
turbines and electronics. Its patented technology is designed to provide a
scalable, lower-cost route to high-purity materials, supporting the transition
to a more circular and economically sustainable mineral economy.
The company’s modular approach aims
to change how critical materials are recovered by providing a faster and more
sustainable option compared to conventional recycling methods.
According to Stefan Vilner, CEO and
co-founder of Nordic Salt Cycle, the company’s technology platform has the
potential to significantly improve the recovery of critical materials such as
lithium and rare earth elements:
Working with our business partners, we can
now recover critical minerals from electric vehicle batteries to start with and
have the potential to expand our platform into other areas, thereby closing the
circular loop at low cost and with high scalability.
Nordic Salt Cycle plans to use its
technology to turn end-of-life products, including batteries and permanent
magnets, into a viable supply of critical minerals.
The company’s prototype is
already operational, and tests show that its molten salt technology can
separate and extract materials far more efficiently than existing methods while
using minimal energy and significantly fewer chemicals, leading to strong unit
economics.