Sortera Alloys receives $10 million in funding, targets high-quality industrial metal recycling from automobiles

Sortera Alloys has received $10 million in funding led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures. This builds on earlier funding from Chrysalix and the Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. The funding will be used to scale operations and grow the team, with initial efforts targeted at high-quality industrial metal recycling from automobiles.

Sortera Alloys brings advanced AI-powered image, data analytics and sensors to the industrial reuse industry. Sortera operates from a 10-acre facility in Fort Wayne, IN, and its first mass production plant is under development and will be operational in 2022. The company has been shipping trial truckloads of aluminum feedstock - cast, sheet and extrusions - for the past few months from its pilot scale plant.

Sortera's technology drives new opportunities for multiple industries by generating new high-purity recycling products through advanced industrial scale sortation methods. Creating novel high-purity recycled (and up-cycled) metal feedstocks from existing scrap streams enables ready for use supply of metals and alloys for high quality domestic manufacturing.

Sortera's A.I. powered sorters have the capability to both upgrade feedstock streams and also remove unwanted contaminants. The upgraded streams can then be used to make new products in markets ranging from automotive cast and flat-roll products, building and construction, aerospace and consumer packaging.

"The global waste industry is over $2 trillion, with nearly 90 percent of that heading to the landfill or incinerators," said Nalin Kumar, Ph.D., founder and president of Sortera Alloys. "The volume of global waste is expected to grow by nearly 70 percent in the next few decades."