January 5, 2026 – Throughout the 2025 calendar year, the Big Blue Tech team operated North America’s only primary production smelter for magnesium metal production. This work was performed in collaboration with our site partner, Garrison Minerals, and graciously sponsored by select strategic partners, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the state of Wyoming.

We are excited to announce the completion of pilot testing and characterization. With over 50 successful trials for internal and client evaluation, Big Blue Technologies’ aluminothermic production route has demonstrated economic and technical viability. The pilot testing campaign resulted in ASTM-conforming magnesium metal ingot (+99.9%) and commercial-grade calcium aluminate.

In parallel with this effort, the Big Blue Tech team commenced the design of a full-scale commercial smelter. Big Blue Technologies is officially moving forward with the construction and implementation of a small commercial plant with a total capacity of 600 tons per year of Mg metal, to be fully operational by the end of 2026.

December 15, 2025 – Big Blue Technologies is proud to announce that we have secured offtake agreements for our calcium aluminate co-product at a volume of 16,000 tons per year for at least three years. The calcium aluminate produced from BBT’s pilot system was tested and found to conform to, or exceed commercial standards for applications such as cements, steel fluxes, and refractories. These agreements represent economic and commercial validation of BBT’s aluminothermic production route for the magnesium metal, proving economic benchmarks of profitability.

Calcium aluminate is a commodity infrastructure material used in a variety of applications such as casted structures, steel refining, mortars, and water treatment. There is only one producer in North America; the US has a major import reliance. Big Blue Technologies aims to replace imports with domestically-produced material to secure our supply chains and downstream industries.

December 10, 2025 – The Big Blue Tech team attended HackSummit in New York this year! We even won the lottery for strategic exhibitor booth placement.

HackSummit is world premier event for founders and investors to meet, present, and exhibit innovative solutions for infrastructure, climate, and food to facilitate cross-collaboration in support on industrial renaissance and food sovereignty.

In attendance were the founders, Boris and Aaron, manning the booth, making 30 second pitches on stage, and meeting new investors and ecosystem players. Special thanks to everyone who visited our booth to ‘lift some weights!’

October 29, 2025 – Arising from a competitive application and selection process, Big Blue Technologies was selected to present at Colorado Cleantech’s flagship event: The Cleantech Mining Challenge.

Colorado Cleantech is a membership-based organization uniting industry, academia, innovators, investors, and policymakers to advance energy technologies for a clean and resilient infrastructure.

We are grateful to have been selected to present at Colorado Cleantech’s flagship Challenge series. Special thanks to Mary Austin and Jennie Markarian!

June 16, 2025 – The Wyoming Energy Authority (WEA) announced today that Governor Gordon had approved two separate projects to receive Energy Matching Funds (EMF). Relevant Gold Corporation has been awarded $226,533 for its versatile time domain electromagnetic (VTEM) survey project in Carbon County, and Big Blue Technologies (BBT) has been awarded $1.5 million to scale up process technology to make magnesium metal in alignment with recent executive orders by President Trump.

Since 2022, the Wyoming State Legislature has appropriated $155 million in funds to the Office of the Governor to leverage Wyoming-based energy projects receiving federal or private funding. The Governor delegated the management of the Energy Matching Funds (EMF) to the Wyoming Energy Authority (WEA). The projects must meet the criteria set forth by the legislature to be eligible for funding: for research, demonstration, pilot projects or commercial deployment projects related to Wyoming energy needs, including but not limited to carbon capture utilization and storage, carbon dioxide transportation, industrial carbon capture, coal refinery, and hydrogen production, transportation, storage, hydrogen hub development, biomass, biochar, hydropower, lithium, processing and separation, battery storage or wind and solar energy.

“These latest Energy Matching Funds projects demonstrate exactly what this program is all about— putting Wyoming and American energy and ingenuity front and center,” said Governor Mark Gordon. “Here in the Cowboy State, we have the homegrown innovation, natural resources, and know-how to produce energy and other critical materials. We’re proud to support projects that align with President Trump’s executive orders and his commitment to strengthening domestic energy production, boosting domestic mining and securing our children’s future.”

“Building resilient domestic supply chains is essential to reducing our dependence on foreign sources for critical minerals,” said Rob Creager, Executive Director of the Wyoming Energy Authority. “Wyoming has long been a leader in advancing the critical minerals agenda, and these projects continue to build on that momentum. We’re proud to support efforts that strengthen national security, support defense readiness, and position Wyoming as a driving force in America’s energy future. Investing in the infrastructure needed to grow critical mineral development ensures Wyoming remains a national leader in manufacturing, resource
development, and energy innovation.”

Big Blue Technologies (BBT) has developed a new smelting technology to produce magnesium metal from ore. This technology uses an aluminothermic method to produce pure magnesium metal and utilizes the residue (slag) as a valuable calcium aluminate cement for a zero-waste process. Magnesium metal has a strong industrial demand and is critical for the US Department of Energy and Department of Defense to produce lightweight vehicle components, aluminum alloys and military incendiaries. China and Russia supply over 90% of the current global magnesium metal supply. During the project, BBT will build a full-scale magnesium metal smelter that will produce 100 tons/year, making it the largest primary production facility in North America.

“The state of Wyoming has been incredibly welcoming for our industrial project to produce magnesium metal and calcium aluminate. As a Wyoming-based company, we are excited and honored to be a part of the EMF program to scale up our operations and begin the implementation of a commercial-scale smelter,” says Dr. Aaron Palumbo, BBT CEO. “This represents a pivotal investment to accelerate our impact for the state of Wyoming and our greater domestic manufacturing and defense industries.”

The EMF project review process includes an initial concept paper, followed by an invitation to submit a formal proposal. The project proposal then goes to a Review Committee – comprised of the Executive Director of the WEA, a designee from the Governor’s Office, the Director of the Department of Workforce Services, the Wyoming State Geologist, and the CEO of the Wyoming Business Council. If projects are recommended to proceed, a ten-day public comment period opens. All comments are reviewed and considered in the final decision to award EMF. The project proposal goes to the Attorney General’s office and then the Governor for final approval. This public process ensures that each project awarded has been thoroughly considered by multiple parties, including an invitation to members of the public to weigh in on projects.

The Energy Matching Funds continuously accepts concept papers but follows a periodic review process. For more information and to learn more about these eleven projects, please visit https://wyoenergy.org/energy-matching-funds.

June 10, 2025 – Big Blue Technologies is pleased to have been featured on a poster presentation by collaborative researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory during the 2025 Concrete and Cement Workshop. NREL and BBT were selected for a sponsored project through the US Department of Energy’s High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation (HPC4EI) program. The project is focused on computational modeling of BBT’s magnesium metal production electric arc smelter and high temperature condenser unit operations. Using experimentally-validated reaction kinetics, thermal profiles, and pressure conditions, the model will be used to aid in the design of a commercial smelter system.

Big Blue Technologies thanks NREL researchers Marc Day (PI), Rajneesh Chaudhary, and Nicholas Deak (pictured below) for their time and effort!

May 30, 2025 – Big Blue Technologies was invited to pitch at the Creative Destruction Lab’s Alumni Showcase event in Toronto. BBT participated in the first year of CDL’s Mineral Stream for the 2023/2024 cohort.

About CDL: Launched as an initiative for tech startups in 2012 at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, CDL has now evolved into a global program with locations in seven countries in Canada, the US, Europe, and Australia. Since its inception, CDL alumni have collectively generated over CAD $35 billion in equity value.
For founders working on deep-tech innovations, CDL offers a unique opportunity to connect with top-tier mentors, scientists, and investors to fast-track your startup’s growth.

May 10, 2025 – Big Blue Technologies, a technology company scaling up a magnesium metal production process, is pleased to announce the completion of a sponsored senior capstone design project through the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Chemical Engineering department. This work supports technical and economic analyses to facilitate the commercial scale-up of a BBT’s aluminothermic process technology.

Throughout the semester undergraduate seniors in Chemical Engineering applied their skills in kinetic modeling, equipment sizing and costing, and process synthesis to derive technical performance parameters for an economic analysis.

Congratulations to the graduating seniors Grace Origer, Summit Shrestha, Owen Sabolcik, and Hermann Klein-Hessling Barrientos!

Please also see a profile article on Hermann in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering’s newsletter.