[FISH] Tomas Villalon Jr. (Phoenix Tailings)

Thinking of Minerals Like Oil: What Aren’t We Getting Out Of The Ground and Why?

As the need for critical materials keeps increasing, considerations need to be made on what are the most time sensitive materials and those materials’ availabilities. This talk will look at finding the intersection of needs, material availability, and hidden obstacles that prevent deployment of these types of operations. Concepts of the oil and gas industries will be applied to minerals as a way to work around these issues.

About the speaker: Dr. Tomas Villalon Jr. is the Founder and CTO of Phoenix Tailings, a company focused on extracting rare earth minerals from mining waste in a carbon-free process. Prior to Phoenix, Tomas was a Research Scientist at Digital Alloys, where he developed analytics and computational models to optimize the Joule Printing Process. His work included analyzing novel microstructures in metallic 3D printing and minimizing contamination, blending theoretical knowledge with practical applications. At Phoenix, Tomas leads R&D and technology development across the entire organization. He brings his IP around “predictive complexation”, and has spearheaded technical innovation. Tomas is the driving force guiding the engineering and research teams at all stages of the value chain. Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from Boston University, pioneering solid oxide membrane processes for high-purity silicon and aluminum production. B.S. Materials Science & Engineering, MIT.

Friday Informal Seminar Hour —

Postdoc-run seminar series within the Earth Resources Laboratory (ERL). Features talks by ERL members as well as special guests from academia and industry on earth science and energy transition topics including geothermal energy, carbon sequestration, geologic hydrogen, and critical minerals / in situ mining.

Contact:  fish_seminar_organizers@mit.edu