A UK company developing a novel electrolytic cell to produce primary magnesium — the metal inside every aerospace aluminium alloy, every helicopter gearbox, and the route to titanium, zirconium and hafnium.
Magnesium is the fifth most critical mineral on the UK's own list. It is the reducing agent for titanium, zirconium and hafnium, and it is in almost every aluminium alloy. The West stopped making it on cost. The cost is the cell.
produced in China — about 950,000 of 1.1 million tonnes. Output outside China is roughly 130,000 tonnes a year, mostly Russia, Israel, Brazil, Turkey and Kazakhstan.
Source: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026European prices rose about 75% in a month when Chinese smelters were curtailed. Twelve EU industry bodies warned car and aluminium plants could stop within weeks.
Source: ACEA coalition statement, 22 Oct 2021Magnesium's rank in the UK 2024 Criticality Assessment. Domestic primary production: none. The last Western smelter outside Israel was liquidated in 2026.
Source: BGS / Critical Minerals Intelligence CentreElectrolytic magnesium emits roughly 5–8 kg CO₂e per kg on today's grids, against 21–47 kg for the coal-fired Pidgeon route that makes most of the world's supply. On low-carbon power the gap widens further.
Source: Wulandari et al., E3S Web of Conferences 693 (2026), life-cycle assessmentMolten-salt electrolysis of magnesium chloride is the clean route: metal at the cathode, chlorine at the anode, no coal. Conventional cells spend only about 40% of their voltage on the chemistry; the rest is lost in the electrolyte gap, the anodes and the connections. Our novel cell architecture targets those losses. It exists today as a computational model; the next twelve months put it in a working bench cell against a conventional baseline.
Anhydrous magnesium chloride from seawater-derived magnesia or imported oxide, chlorinated on site with the cell's own chlorine.
A new electrode architecture designed to cut internal resistance while keeping metal and chlorine apart. The subject of our pre-seed programme.
Electricity is the cost. A firmed renewable contract plus a lower-energy cell is what makes UK metal viable; the seed-stage study puts numbers on both.
ASTM B92-grade magnesium for UK aerospace, defence and aluminium — and, later, the alloys and components they buy today from imported metal.
Melt characterisation, a bench electrolysis cell measured against a conventional baseline, and materials durability — in an Oxford laboratory, with Henry Royce Institute characterisation.
Seed-funded demonstration cell and a site-specific UK feasibility study: power contract, feedstock, siting and permitting.
Sized to domestic demand, supplying magnesium and alloy to UK aerospace and defence. Everything about this stage depends on what the bench cell shows.
Materials science, University of Oxford. UK strategy for a US primary-magnesium start-up; author of the UK magnesium opportunity brief.
University of Oxford, Department of Materials. Electrochemistry of light-metal electrodes; magnesium alloy and process research; author of the cell architecture model.
Advisors with backgrounds in industrial power markets and UK defence policy. To be announced.