Licube wants to be the fuel provider to the fusion power industry — see how at TechCrunch Disrupt
Fusion power plants will need a lot of lithium, and Licube is preparing to be a key supplier.
Licube, a startup founded by Yohei Kiguchi, has licensed technology from Hirosaki University in Japan to purify lithium-6, the form required for fusion power plants to generate fuel. Fusion plants need a mix of deuterium and tritium, with tritium being extremely rare in nature and insufficient to power all planned plants. To address this, fusion reactions produce tritium when neutrons strike lithium atoms, which can then be collected, purified, and reused as fuel.
However, lithium-6, the most effective at capturing neutrons, only makes up about 7.5% of natural lithium. Licube aims to tackle this issue, with Yohei Kiguchi predicting a $50 billion market for lithium-6 by 2040 if fusion becomes a reality. The startup, part of TechCrunch Disrupt's Startup Battlefield pitch competition, plans to use its technology not only for fusion fuel but also for semiconductor, pharmaceutical, fission reactors, and spacecraft industries.
Licube's core technology, based on electrolyzers, separates lithium-6 from natural lithium through electrical current-driven chemical reactions.
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