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PCM cofounder Sean Zheng and COO Angela Fasnacht join host Jim Barrood to share their journey from global engineering and Princeton research to pioneering sustainable lithium extraction. They discuss breakthrough technologies like Lily Pad and Smart Pond, Princeton’s entrepreneurship ecosystem, and New Jersey’s support in building resilient, domestic critical mineral supply chains.
Angela Fasnacht: I am Chief Operating Officer for Princeton Critical Minerals.
Jim Barrood: Sean.
Sean Zheng: So I'm the co-founder and the CEO of Princeton Critical Minerals or PCM.
Jim Barrood: Great. And tell us about how you got to what you're doing now. I'm really fascinated with your story. Tell us, let's take it from high school to present day.
Angela Fasnacht: I'm Colombian. I was born and raised in Colombia. I'm a professional engineer and I've been focusing on water and the environment for almost 30 years. My experience has been working in different areas, in public utilities, in the private sector, at different levels, from technical to operations to leadership and at different levels and.
Going all of this throughout the world, basically in, not only in Latin America, but also in North America and in Africa. I have had the opportunity to put all of this together and then bring it to bring all the knowledge to entrepreneurship, right? And so now with PCMI, I have been able to piece everything, all my experience into one single sector that really needs to move forward faster and agile.
So that's pretty much my experience.
Jim Barrood: Great.
Angela Fasnacht: All right,
Jim Barrood: Sean.
Sean Zheng: Yeah, so I was actually born and raised in China. And then, trained as a civil engineer, that's for my bachelor's degree. And then, I came to the US and then so firstly, UMD and then PhD from Berkeley.
I actually later on became a water chemist, environmental engineer by training. I stay in academia for quite some time before I jump into entrepreneurship. During my time at the Berkeley, so I was working on this. Very innovative, quite interesting technologies that combine nano materials with membrane processes.
So we had this kind of very unique layer, what we call, a molecular sif that is able to be engineered to filter out. As small as a small ion that's for desalination or some larger molecules like PFAS, that's for water purification purposes. And then, using this type of membranes in different applications.
So after Berkeley, I joined Princeton, the Ling Center as a distinguished postdoc fellow. That's when I started to look into the critical mineral space. Because, my background in water chemistry, I started to think about what type of materials that I can extract, so lithium directly jumped into my scope of work.
So we find that we can actually get lithium out from this very special feedstock called the brine, which is typical, times more concentrated than the seawater, which is the next level of challenge for my research. And then, develop the technology really see the potential of bringing this lab-based innovation to the market to make an impact right now.
Co-founded PCM Waste, Jason, who was my co-advisor. During my time at Princeton. And then 18 months of business training from Princeton. That is after the postdoc. And then here we are. PCM is about two years old now and I think we're doing great.
Jim Barrood: Great.
Angela Fasnacht: And I would say I would like to add one, one part of the experience, which I was waiting for Sean to mention.
When I was after working with this private sector for quite some time, Princeton asked me to come into the, as a fellowship as a fellow for the center. So during that time, during that year. I was exposed to research from different professors. PFAS is one of them. Peter Jaffy and also Jason Ren.
And during that time is when I saw this technology and when there was, it was time to return back again to the private sector. I saw the opportunity to say, okay, they are in the perfect moment. The technology is already in existence. It's a perfect moment to bring it to market. And that's where my expertise came from.
So I decided to join as well.
Jim Barrood: That's great. And talk to us, Sean, about the sort of, how one goes about becoming a postdoc and then being involved with a venture spinning out technology, which I think this is an example of. And then the program that you went through that Princeton offers to help train, faculty and postdocs, et cetera.
Talk to us about that because I think most people aren't aware of how that works.
Sean Zheng: Yeah, absolutely. I'd say, recently I actually heard a saying that, someone actually said, oh, scientists doesn't understand business. I think that's completely not true, right? This many years of, academia type of training already equipped me with all the kind of a skillset I need to build up this company.
But, it is different. Type of thinking, in terms of research, which is mostly, trying to find the truth or. Just to build up the technology itself versus building up, a business which has a lot more kind of elements come in. 'Cause it's really quite interesting.
But then, what the star program, that's the, basically the business training I went through from Princeton, which I really appreciate that the chance to actually be selected as the first. Cohort of Princeton Entrepreneurship Program. The first cohort, I only have four people in, in, in the, in that year I was one of them.
We went through the NSFI core program that is basically for custom customer discovery. And then, there's this kind of connection between entrepreneurs and then, great, Princeton. Network, the entrepreneurship ecosystem, investors, mentors who has been through these kind of processes.
And then, I think for me personally I can see how my skillset previously as a researcher get translated into building up a company. It's all about critical thinking. Get things prioritized, get, making a good plan, be smart, sometimes it will say be wise, not just smart, and then be able to attract and build up a great team.
And on top of that, I think every entrepreneur need a little bit more, a little bit of luck. That's actually key. For example, we're lucky enough to actually meet Angela.
Jim Barrood: Excellent, excellent. And how about you Angelita. Tell us about how you see that process from your perspective. Is someone coming from industry?
Angela Fasnacht: Yes. I also, I'm also exposed to academia when I was doing my PhD program in environmental engineering and. You from the perspective of Princeton and how much Princeton support gave to the students. I was able to see a lot of momentum going on and a lot of interest in ensuring that, and precisely one of the reasons I came.
To Princeton as a fellow is to be able to link, to make real research into operations, like operationalize that, commercialize it, make it a product, right? And so it makes sense and it made sense to me because coming from the industry perspective, there are many opportunities when there is research from university or a new product that.
Want to be tested by an industry and the industry is risking doing that, right? And so having these, being backed up by a very strong university, by a very strong research, very strong background. Of professorship really. It makes sense, and then with that, you can really open the door to say, okay, let me learn about it, because I really know the reputation.
Once you open the door they, it's super strong science that is behind this. Sean and Jason had done a fantastic job on this. And so it really is part of the trust that that. Coming from, again, from industry that I would say yes, I, if it were me on the other side, I want to open the door to this co, this company.
And it is. That's the key. And how the transition happened to me. It is interesting to be able to do this transition from, from the one who was automatically the user right. Of a product like this to, to the one who is offering it. Because I really had to think in the way of operations, right?
Become, what is the, what do they want, what do want to, what do we want to offer them with a very powerful product. It's true. But then how can we make this process, this transition process easy, right? And so that's another component that product alone, product development alone doesn't produce.
You have to consider that. As part of the package, how do we make this transition to use a new product? Absolutely new. An easy one. Painful list. Yeah, I think that's part of the question,
Jim Barrood: right? So tell us about this technology, the product, what it solves for, so people who aren't in that space know exactly what it is, especially those who don't have a background in this type of field.
Sean Zheng: Yeah. So PCM, really focused on delivering this unique solution to extract lithium from the brine based sources and beyond. So our business focus is actually also rich, say fertilizer production, magnesium production, that's all very critical for national security purposes to actually power the electrification of the entire human civil civilization, for example, lithium is the critical components that goes into every rechargeable battery. That is for EVs, that is for the big battery packs, that is for energy storage solutions to build up a stronger, more reliable grid and to be able to integrate more solar energy winded energy into what we have right now, which is.
Basically, the fossil fuel powered power system. So it's really enabling a more sustainable and then renewable future. So what we are offering at PCM is actually a suite of tools that solves the immediate need to be able to boost. The production capacity of lithium or some of the critical minerals, and that is for near term.
And then we have some technologies for the future that are to unlock many untapped resources globally and for the people to be able to access those minerals to build up their infrastructures at every place in this underserved.
Jim Barrood: And explain to us what, I think there's lily pad or Lily technology.
Tell us in as simple terms as possible how that works and how is lithium, how does it, they even extract and get it to market.
Angela Fasnacht: So if I may. So, Lithium, there are different ways to produce lithium, right? One, one of them is from Brock. We're not going to get to that point. The other one is Brian.
It's super interesting to understand what brine is. It's not water, it's brine. So it's a liquid, right? It's super concentrated in, in, in salts and in Latin America or specifically in the lithium triangle, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, that lithium triangle in what we call near the, at Desert, desert, they get this brine, they pump it up from the ground and they use it.
The sun that has a super high UV in those locations is super high, could get as high as 1619. It has really high UV. Use these to put the brine, to put the brine into large lakes, ponds or lagoons. And let them evaporate. By the sun, right? So it's a liquid that evaporates and so it gets to different stages of evaporation.
So different bones or different Lagos. As it progresses, it starts to precipitate contaminants or other stats that are not necessarily useful for this, for the lithium to make it fine grade lithium, right? So what we did. In the process, one of the technologies that you mentioned is the sun.
There is so much that a lagoon like this can evaporate in a given year. It's really slow. It could take one and a half year, 10 months to be able to get all the process through. Even though there is a very high amount of radiation. The lily pads are put in at the surface of these ponds or Lago.
And the, there is still a film of brine that stays on top of it. So the floating is semi floating, right? And the iPath has a proprietary coating that what it does is attract the energy from the sun, transform that in thermal energy and and also repels the salts. All this environment, if you put a pen in that place, it will get fouled with salts easily.
With this technology and the material that's going back to material science that Sean and Jason worked on well, it does, it propels the salts to avoid that situation, and ultimately the results is that instead of waiting for one 18 months to be able to do that evaporation process, it will have that time.
So it will be, it will evaporate twice as much in, in a given time. It will be steady throughout the seasons. South America also has seasons like wintertime, summertime, springtime, and fall. And also what it does is that for locations where mine lithium hasn't been extracted or salts aren't, haven't been, other type of salts haven't been extracted yet.
So there is no ponds yet, but they have planned to create a pond. They can have the amount of phones that they use. So if they were planning to use 10 with this technology, they could use five. That's a very good value proposition, not only to boost the production now, right now with all these needs of critical minerals for, in lithium environments, but also to be able to construct less amount of infrastructure.
Jim Barrood: Got it. And did you mention you're using ai in your processes? Tell us about that.
Sean Zheng: Yeah so what Angela talked about is our flagship product, Lily Pad. So we have a second technology in the large scale demonstration stage as well. It's called Smart Pond. It's like a smart gadget that goes into your home to be able to control and monitor your ACS and TVs.
What the pond is doing is basically big reactors in series. It's a cascade of reactors now for every reactor system. To make it more efficient, more optimized, people needed to have some data support, which the industry doesn't have at this moment. So what we are offering is basically a suite of very comprehensive sense of networks that goes into those pump systems, transmit data.
Real time, upload it and the data goes through our AI powered proprietary algorithm to translate these raw data, for example, temperature, palm depths into something actionable. Which means that we are making pumping plants for the lithium producers, for the operators. We help them predict the chemistry inside of the pond.
And then we display and show all of that data, on a. Online realtime dashboard, which means that, the CEO of the biggest lithium mining companies, they can, sit in their office, look at the screen and learn how the, his pond is, or her pond is working and how much money he's making.
So that's basically the second product, has the a, we basically bring AI into the min mining sector.
Jim Barrood: Great. Great. And tell us about your collaboration or your partnership with hacks and tell us what HAX is.
Sean Zheng: We had a very pleasant relationship and experience with hacks.
So hacks is one of our early stage investor. And what hacks is heart tech, they are a heart tech investor. At the same time it's an incubator. Not only just provide financial support, advice like some of the other VCs does. They do provide equipment. They do provide lab space that really help the startups, especially in the early stage to get relief from these kinds of heavy capital expenditures, in terms of buying expensive equipment or lab equipment. So that the the founders can focus on more important stuff, basically building up the technology, scaling up the team. So HAX is located in Newark.
That location is through, I think it's through a collaboration between SOSV, which is the mothership, and then the NJ EDA basically trying to create this ecosystem to help NJ based entrepreneurs and the companies to really get through this initial hip. We, our relationship with hacks, goes beyond a typical, I would say, investor and portfolio company 'cause we are currently located in their incubator, the physical space.
So I see my investors on a daily basis. They're doing due diligence on me on a daily basis, which is. Not very typical in many other cases. But then, through that process, they learned more about us more. We, what we do, they understand more of, what the value proposition of our business, our technology.
At the same time, I and we, the whole team actually learned so much from them, how they think of the investment space, the entrepreneurship approaches. They provide us a lot of good connections. Resources. So overall, it's a very nice experience.
Jim Barrood: Great. Angela, go ahead.
Angela Fasnacht: No, I would add that, that definitely, I came to the environment of HAX after they have moved already to, to the location recently. It was recent. My, my perception from hacks has been not only this investor, but also this mentor. It has been the mentor, the mentorship at all times when there is a need for.
We have, I would definitely say that we is in, in addition of being an incubator, it has become an accelerated accelerator for us to move from the pilot stage to the commercial stage. Having experts. In there, who has been able to offer the expertise on different environments? On, on manufacturing or on labs, on on, on the business Mind.
It is it was very important and it is. I was, I will definitely kudos to the team in hacks with all the support that has been providing to, to, to us. And I can see it from other team members in the same incubator side. They do the same. They have the, they get the same from this entity.
Jim Barrood: It's a great organization, right? It's global in nature as well, so it can really build those, help you build those partnerships you need.
Sean Zheng: Yeah, we I just wanted to say we're almost the first team who actually, signed a deal and a joined hacks portfolio from Princeton University and everything.
We have seen more and more teams spin out from Princeton and joined Hacks. Hacks has a sister comp, I would say a VC firm called Indie Bio that is less heart tech, but then more on the pharmaceutical side.
Jim Barrood: Got it. And the state is involved with that hub with hacks. Have you received additional support from the state?
Sean Zheng: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We actually received tremendous, support and help from the the NJ government. For example, N-J-E-D-A, nj CSIT, and department of Labor.
There are, a lot of support from them. I think at this moment we have at least three. Active initiatives supported by the nj grants from, small Cleantech vouchers, which would allow us to get access to, university labs, equipment.
I think we're. We are now collaborating with Stevens to try to, understand some of the hydrodynamic behavior of our lily pad in the big, evaporation pool. At the same time, we have, another grant that really helped us, start the kickoff, the the onsite pilot of one of our technologies here in, in New Jersey.
Jim Barrood: Got it. And then, go ahead.
Angela Fasnacht: Yes. If I may also to add that because of the New Jersey engagement, we have been able to attract a strategic capital and partners as well. That's, that seal of have been able to, to, for New Jersey to, for the government to be able to trust and to work with us, with companies that are to help transition these companies from r and d to manufacturing.
And they vow for this process by supporting in funding and in mentorship is, it has been critical for this for being able to get additional capital and partners.
Jim Barrood: That's fantastic. Now what about the domestic policy environment now, has that are you looking at more domestic producers of lithium or has that changed your strategy or outlook?
As we have different federal policies now coming down from the new administration.
Sean Zheng: Yeah. Making the critical mineral supply chain stronger and more domestic has always been a bipartisan direction. We have seen, the government both statewide, federal level, all very supportive for companies who build up stronger supply chain.
Now the. Lithium space, in particular that, we have seen, more and more interest in producing lithium domestically. I think when we talk about our product, there's another one that we didn't really mention. So on top of Lily Pad and the AI based model, we have a, another.
Product in the development stage that's very focused on unlocking the lithium resources here in the United States. For Arkansas, Utah, these places, Nevada, these places all have, lithium resources at slightly lower kind of a grade at a slow lower grade, which means that, the technology needs to be, sort of should be able to, get lithium out from lower grade resources. So the key insight that we have is that, a lot of these kind of new technologies, emerging approaches has worked in South America. But then a key component that has not been replaced is the big evaporation pool.
Our lily pad actually, increased the efficiency, solve half of the equation there. But then if we wanted to, bring full scale what we call direct lithium extraction process, which basically eliminate the use of EVA evaporation pool, some technology needs to be implemented.
To replace the function of the pool, which is to concentrate the lithium brine. And we have a technology that can do that, and not only do that in a very efficient, energy efficient way and also we can recover the water, which is actually very important. I actually heard a saying that, the lithium problem is actually a water problem.
So, PCM is actually in a very unique position of solving this.
Jim Barrood: That's fantastic.
Angela Fasnacht: And Jim, this product is called Eli, this product, the third product that, that Sean mentioned. We didn't create this product. We didn't come to the, to life in under this year or administration. This has been in the pipeline for us since the beginning.
Very beginning. Lilipad has been Yes. The one that is, hasn't gone into commercialization and so on. But Eli came almost at the same time because of what Sean mentioned, because of the need of having to grow from the owned use to a more sustainable use. But the sustainability hasn't been there yet with what is DLE, and that's what we are bringing.
We're bringing that bridge. To be able to make it happen with sustainable means, with lower energy and with recovery of water. But not only that, it's also keeping in mind the US or North America type brines, because the, these ones are, some of them, the concentration are as not as high. And so the efficiency for a lot of these DLE technologies may not be there yet unless there is a way to be able to concentrate them.
Like Sean mentioned. So that in principle works with these low concentrator price, but also it works with produced water with oil and gas produced water as well, where also there is interest to recover critical minerals, one of which is lithium.
Jim Barrood: Oh, wow. Oh, that's really interesting. Alright, this has been really fascinating.
And so the outlook for the industry is bright even with some changes. It slowed down in the EV market, it's still, we're going to need lithium. Is that right? There's no lower sort of demand. Is that correct?
Sean Zheng: Absolutely. It, Jim, what's really interesting is that, I would say, probably two years ago, the BESS, battery-based energy storage solutions, they, the market is relatively small because, lithium price is really high, which means that the battery cost is too high to, to make that type of business, economical.
Now with the slightly lower price EV is still driving. Most of the market, probably 80%. The other two 20% is the emergent energy storage solution, meaning big battery packs, I believe, in New Jersey the BPU the public utility, they just launched a new program that is aimed to bring more and more this kind of energy storage stations into the state to reinforce the grid.
And then, talking about the future, people talking about, the human joy that, that, every human joy that, that going to, do the, basically all this kind of jobs for the humans, they need to power to buy the batteries. I recently saw a video that a new type of humanoid, they can actually swap their batteries by themselves.
So they go to the wall and then just, put a battery on its back and then, and then go out to keep working, which is fascinating. And then for data centers. For data centers, these days have been, being, tracking what meta is trying to do, what Elon Musk is trying to do.
They're talking about crazy numbers of GPUs to actually build up this, super large, data centers and all of that. If we calculate the energy consumption, one of that big data center, it consumes electricity roughly. Half of European kind of a yearly consumption, which is crazy and then to make it possible, it actually need a lot of, energy storage solutions to be able to actually support it.
Jim Barrood: Oh my God. I didn't think about that at all. Wow. That, that, that's a huge market. And that's not Yes. Huge market. That's not slowing down. That's not slowing. No, I was about to say
Angela Fasnacht: that. No, that's not back. We're not backing up from there. Oh no. We are already, that ship has sail. It's going to grow more.
Yes.
Jim Barrood: Yeah, for sure. This has been a great conversation. We usually mention a few short clips or short insights. So I know you've been obviously raising money, and so is there one tip for entrepreneurs out there who are looking to raise money that you can provide?
Sean Zheng: Yeah, absolutely. I don't want to call it advice, right? This is based on my personal experience. What we experience, and this is something that I talk a lot internally to the team, to me it's all about timing and the time. So timing means you have to do the right thing at the right moment, fundraising is definitely one of them.
And then for example. For critical hires, when to go out to the market because, as a very small team, usually when we started, the company needs to go around this kind of de-risking cycle, which means that you. Spend the time, work on the technology, de-risk it, and then show it to the customer further de-risk it, to get validated.
And then, go to the VCs to raise some money to financially de-risk. And then you go back. To work on the technology again. So it's this kind of cycle. To be able to understand when to do what is super important. Timing means founders need to understand how long it takes to accomplish each of the goals.
How to prioritize. It's a marathon as people don't burn out, I don't want to burn out our team myself. But at the same time, inside of that marathon, there are a lot of short sprint. To be able to be able to, on top of everything, to unlock some resources and things like that, definitely need a very dedicated, 24-7 work sometimes.
Yeah. So time and time, that's what I experienced to make the startup go into the right direction.
Jim Barrood: Great Angela.
Angela Fasnacht: I would add, yes, I would add two things. One is and very true if this is a marathon one, is the relationships. So relationships that we have built, relationships with the universities, relationship with this, the government relationship with other companies.
That's those, that's key to be able to move forward from the funding perspective and from the client perspective, that relationship building is critical. Being able to do that is essential. And you know this, Jim, you are the king of relationships. And the second is to be smart on who the investors or who people that relate to us are because these investors.
I know our people that relate to us are not necessarily just investors. They are mentors, as we mentioned, they are industry people that will know the environment, whether it's not necessarily only the critical minerals environment, but will know the environment where we need to grow and will offer the support.
So basically is understanding and finding those who not just give funding but that share alignment and that is critical for us to move forward has been, and for. New for view, for people who are looking into doing something like this. It is key to be able to grow stronger in a, in environment.
Jim Barrood: Yeah. And is there any guidance for people who are looking to start renewables focused venture in the state? Any quick tips on that?
Sean Zheng: I would say, because NJ is one of the leading state that has a very specific energy goal. It's actually one of the best place probably in the United States to start a renewable kind of a startup because there are just so many.
Resources that people can leverage in, in terms of all this state level non-dilutive grants, fundings, people who understand industries, in industrial. Expert, veteran business professionals who has done this, so from the financial point the support and then to the people who can, basically who can actually build up the business.
So those are the two elements to pillars that will actually make the company successful. And I also, I believe that NJ has this very special, state venture funding evergreen. I have never seen it in any other states. So absolutely a good place to start this type of business.
Jim Barrood: Great. Anything else to add, Angelita?
Angela Fasnacht: No, I could, that's what Sean says. It's a great state to, to start and to do, and people are reachable. Yeah. They are not out there far away. No. They're reachable. You can call them. You can visit them, if you can get guidance on how to do the process, so yes.
Very good. Great.
Jim Barrood: This has been really a fascinating conversation. Let's, we typically end with a poem or a quote or a saying. Let's start with you Angelita. What would you like to share?
Angela Fasnacht: Okay, so I have one that resonates to me is that the best way to predict the future is to be creative, and that's.
Peter Drucker, and it is very true. My entire life has been a little bit of a chaos because of my upbringing and everything that happened. I almost lost my life in Colombia while I was kidnapped there. It was, it is another story. And all of these just had to restart so much, and to go back again and reset, but.
The best way to predict. It's not necessary to just let's create it, let's create it, let's go and venture and that's key to me and to my life, I think is very valid.
Jim Barrood: That's great. And Sean.
Sean Zheng: So I recently started a book, recommended by my friend, I think it's called the Material World, the six materials that are going to improve modern civilization.
I think it's by Ed Conway. I started, and then if some people are curious about what these six basic materials are, I think they're sand, salt, iron. Copper, aluminum and lithium. So lithium is chapter number six. So I'm, I'm really keen to actually read that.
But then, what, how, the author actually, described one of the materials and that you guys can guess which one is that? It says, it is a magical metal along with hydrogen and helium. It was one of the three primordial elements created in the big band, making it one of the oldest pieces of matter in the universe.
No other element has quite the same combination of lightness, conductivity, and the electrochemical power. So you can guess what this is. Lithium. It's super relevant to what we do. But, in general, we are in the, so we are in space, we deal with lithium, we deal with salt, a little bit, sand and things like that.
This is basically, really keep me up at midnight to try to think about both the technology side and the business side. Yeah,
Jim Barrood: For sure. This has been really fascinating. Good luck with everything. We were excited about your potential success, keep up the good work.
