Houston researchers propose model to scale e-waste recycling

critical research

Jian Shi, Chuyue Wang and Kailai Wang have developed a model that aims to make recycling e-waste economically viable and help recover critical minerals needed for EVs. Photo courtesy UH.

The “missing link” in critical minerals may have been in our junk drawers all along, according to new research from the University of Houston.

Jian Shi, an associate professor in the UH Cullen College of Engineering, and his team have unveiled a new supply chain model that aims to make e-waste economically viable and could help make large-scale recycling possible.

Shi, along with professor Kailai Wang and graduate researcher Chuyue Wang, published the work in a recent issue of Nature. Their study outlines how gold, lithium and cobalt from discarded electronics can be kept circulating in the U.S. through the process of “urban mining.” It was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) through the Vehicle Technologies Office.

The team’s research found that e-waste is the fastest-growing solid waste stream in the world. When waste from smartphones or tablets is left unmanaged, the devices can leak hazardous waste and pose significant fire risks due to aging batteries. Additionally, when they are shipped off to foreign landfills, the U.S. loses the potential to recycle or reuse the critical minerals left inside.

“A lot of people have iPads or old iPhones sitting in their drawers right now, and that’s a waste of a critical resource,” Shi said in a news release. “Urban mining allows us to extract the same high-value materials found in traditional mines without the environmental destruction. More importantly, it helps secure our domestic supply chain for the technologies of tomorrow.”

According to UH, recycling e-waste has not succeeded in the U.S. due to a fragmented recycling system, in which manufacturers, collectors and recyclers operate separately, driving up costs.

The UH team's research looks to change that.

In the study, the researchers modeled streamlined recycling efforts by mapping the interactions between manufacturers and independent recycling markets. Their dual-channel closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) model identified how these players can transition from competitors to partners, which can distribute profits more equitably and make recycling efforts more financially attractive.

According to UH, the research has particular significance due to the growing demand for electronic vehicles and their batteries.

“We can improve the performance of the entire recycling ecosystem and make the profit distribution more balanced,” Wang said in the release. “This ensures that the materials we need for EVs and advanced electronics stay right here in the U.S.”

“By making recycling work at scale, we aren’t just cleaning up waste,” Shi added. “We’re building a foundation that benefits both our national security and our economy.”

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The Carbon to Value Initiative kicks off this week at Greentown Houston. Photo via GreentownLabs.com

9 carbontech startups named to Greentown Labs accelerator program

new cohort

A carbon innovation initiative in collaboration with Greentown Houston has named its new cohort.

The Carbon to Value Initiative (C2V Initiative) — a collaboration between NYU Tandon School of Engineering's Urban Future Lab (UFL), Greentown Labs, and Fraunhofer USA — has named nine startup participants for the fourth year of its carbontech accelerator program.

"Once again, the C2V Initiative has been able to select some of the most promising carbontech startups through a very competitive process with a 7 percent acceptance rate," Frederic Clerc, director of the C2V Initiative and interim managing director of UFL, says in a news release. "The diversity of this cohort, in its technologies, products, geographies, and stages, makes it an amazing snapshot of the rapidly evolving carbontech innovation landscape."

The cohort was selected from over a hundred applications from nearly 30 countries. In the six-month program, the nine companies gain access to the C2V Initiative's Carbontech Leadership Council, an invitation-only group of corporate, nonprofit, and government leaders who provide commercialization opportunities and identify avenues for technology validation, testing, and demonstration.

The year four cohort, according to the release, includes:

Ardent, from New Castle, Delaware, is a process technology company that is developing membrane-based solutions for point-source carbon capture and other chemical separations.
CarbonBlue, from Haifa, Israel, develops a chemical process that mineralizes and extracts CO2 from water, which then reabsorbs more atmospheric CO2.
MacroCycle, from Somerville, Massachusetts, develops a chemical recycling process to turn polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyester-fiber waste into "virgin-grade" plastics.
Maple Materials, from Richmond, California, develops an electrolysis process to convert CO2 into graphite and oxygen.
Oxylus Energy, from New Haven, Connecticut, develops a direct electrochemical process to convert CO2 into fuels and chemical feedstocks, such as methanol.
Phlair, from Munich, Germany, develops a renewable-energy-powered Direct Air Capture (DAC) system using an electrochemical process for acid and base generation.
Secant Fuel, from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, develops a one-step electrocatalytic process that converts flue gas into syngas.
RenewCO 2, from Somerset, New Jersey, is developing an electrochemical process to convert CO2 into fuels and chemicals, such as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) or propylene glycol.
Seabound, from London, England, builds carbon-capture equipment for new and existing ships.

"The depth and breadth of carbontech innovations represented in this applicant pool speaks volumes to this growing and dynamic industry around the world," adds Kevin Dutt, Interim CEO of Greentown Labs. "We're eager to support these nine impressive companies as they progress through this program and look forward to seeing how they engage with the CLC now and into the future."

The C2V Initiative will host a public Year 4 kickoff event on Sept. 19 at Greentown Houston and via livestream.

In partnership with Venture Metals +, Baker Hughes has saved over 125 million pounds of scrap metals from more than 50 of the company's locations around the world. Photo via bakerhughes.com

Houston energy company diverts over 125M pounds of scrap metals from landfills

reduce, reuse, recycle

For three years, Baker Hughes has been working with a full-scale scrap processor partner to divert scrap metal waste from landfills as a part of the company's net-zero commitment by 2050.

In partnership with Venture Metals +, Baker Hughes has saved over 125 million pounds of scrap metals from more than 50 of the company's locations around the world.

Venture Metals + collects, recycles, and manages the full recycling process of scrap materials, providing recycling, reclamation, and investment recovery as a service to industrial, manufacturing, and service facilities.

“The relationship that has been formed between Baker Hughes and Venture Metals is the definition of a true partnership. Over the many years we have collaborated on significant projects and there has been a foundation of trust, transparency and investment on both sides,” Venture Metals’ Vice-Chairman of the Board Mark Chazanow says in a news release. “Together, we have been able to do our part to improve the environment by circular and sustainable recycling while also capturing substantial revenue gain. We look forward to growing the partnership and seeing a bright future ahead together.”

According to the release, Baker Hughes plans to grow the partnership to introduce similar programs at five key locations around the world. Venture Metals+ also set up Baker Hughes with customized containers to help separate titanium, stainless steel, Inconel, and other recyclable metals.

“Reducing our environmental footprint is a critical focus area for our sustainability strategy as we continue to reduce waste, minimize the resources we use and promote circularity,” Allyson Anderson Book, chief sustainability officer at Baker Hughes, adds. “Through partners like Venture Metals +, we are minimizing waste and reusing scrap materials as much as possible for more sustainable operations.”

The number one thing that consumers can remember when it comes to recycling is that thin, pliable plastic should be excluded from standard blue recycling bins. Photos by welcomia/Canva.

Yet another reason to loathe plastic bags

Guest column

As waste-to-energy gains a foothold in the energy transition, trash's more palatable cousin, recycling, sits just close enough for deeper inspection. Plastic, by and large, one of the most loved and loathed petroleum by-products, is often singled out as the most nefarious contributor to our declining climate.

With significant efforts underway to reduce the volume of single-use plastic while reusing or repurposing stronger plastics, let us turn attention to the third action in the timeless mantra–recycling.

Over the last few decades, we have embraced recycling globally, assured in our noble commitment to derive further utility out of items that no longer serve an immediate purpose from our unique perspective.

However, the act of recycling still closely resembles taking out the trash. We place items deemed worthy of secondary use into large, usually plastic, bins for carting far away from the rest of the things that still provide utility to our personal household or place of business.

For the most part, simply believing that there could or should be further utility of an item is criterion enough to warrant placement in the exalted blue bin. The small hit of dopamine elicited from the satisfaction that we are “doing our part” is just strong enough to reinforce the idea that we have also “done enough.”

But according to Vu Nguyen, director of corporate development and innovation, Waste Management, one of Houston’s leading trash, recycling, and environmental services companies, there remains one elusive challenge: the plastic bag.

The plastic bag proves problematic for a multitude of reasons, not least because of its role in ruining literally every.other.recyling.effort.ever. On the whole, we have been blissfully ignorant of the recycling process, and even more so of how much our good intentions to reuse and recycle are thwarting the same process for so many other reusable materials.

“The number one thing that consumers can remember when it comes to recycling is that thin, pliable plastic [like] bags and wrappers should be firmly excluded from standard blue recycling bins,” Nguyen shared at a Houston Tech Rodeo event earlier this spring.

After collection, simple but effective mechanisms sort items delivered to a recycling facility. Individuals pick through discarded materials placed on conveyor belts before the remaining items work their way through heavy magnets that extract useful metals while bursts of air pressure push lightweight items like paper away from heavier items like glass.

Plastic bags, including the lovely little blue ones so many of us like to purchase to fill our quaint non-standard recycling bins, tangle up in these conveyor belts, causing shutdowns to unravel them from materials otherwise well-suited for these sorting efforts. Downtime on the sorting line can get expensive, so much so that many recycling facilities often turn away entire trucks filled with potentially reusable items if even a single plastic bag is discovered inside.

Consider this the start of a public service announcement campaign to raise awareness of that simple fact.

Yasser Brenes, area president – south for Republic Services, echoes this sentiment as he shares a few tips and reminders with EnergyCapitalHTX.

Know What to Throw: Educate yourself on what can and cannot go inside your recycling bin. Focus on only recycling rigid plastic containers such as bottles, jugs and tubs, metal food and beverage containers, glass bottles and jars, paper and cardboard. Don’t be a wish-cycler, never throw items in your recycling bin if you are unsure if they can be recycled or not.

Empty, Clean, Dry: Recyclables should be rinsed free of residual food and liquid. If recyclables are not empty, clean and dry the residual food or liquid could contaminate other more fragile recyclables, like paper and cardboard, and require them to be thrown away.

Don’t Bag It: Recyclables should always be placed loose inside your recycling bin. Flexible plastics, such as grocery bags, wrap and tangle around the sorting equipment and should never be placed in your recycling bin.

That’s not to say that plastic bags and wrappers cannot be recycled at all; on the contrary, they absolutely can. The mechanisms for sorting them from other materials like paper, aluminum, glass, and heavy plastics just aren’t quite mature enough… yet.

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Lindsey Ferrell is a contributing writer to EnergyCapitalHTX and founder of Guerrella & Co.

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Texas ranks below average on most energy-efficient states report

room to improve

Despite being home to a booming energy sector, Texas ranks below average on a new list of the country’s most and least energy-efficient states.

The list, compiled by personal finance website WalletHub, puts Texas at No. 34 for energy efficiency. It ranked 27th for energy efficiency of homes and 41st for energy efficiency of cars. Texas improved by one spot on the 2026 report, after coming in at No. 35 last year and No. 36 in 2024.

California took the top spot on the list this year, beating out Vermont, which claimed the No. 1 rank in 2025. South Carolina ranked No. 48. Due to data limitations, Alaska and Hawaii were excluded from WalletHub’s analysis.

In the WalletHub study, California had the lowest residential energy consumption per capita and the third-highest efficiency for home energy. At the bottom of the list, South Carolina ranked 48th for energy efficiency of homes and 35th for energy efficiency of cars.

Here’s who joined California in the top 5:

No. 2 Vermont
No. 3 New York
No. 4 Washington
No. 5 Massachusetts

WalletHub notes the average U.S. family spends at least $2,000 per year on utilities, and the average consumer spent $2,411 on gasoline in 2024.

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that adopting energy-efficient measures in the home could reduce a family’s utility costs by as much as 25 percent. As for gas, the agency found a more fuel-efficient vehicle could save the average driver more than $1,000 per year.

“Energy efficiency doesn’t just help save the planet — it also helps save you money by lowering the amount of electricity, gas, oil, or other types of energy you need to consume,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

“While there are some steps you can take to become more energy-efficient on your own, living in the right area can give you a big boost,” he adds. “For example, certain states have much better public transportation systems that minimize your need to drive, at least in big cities. Some places also have better-constructed buildings that retain heat better during the winter or stay cooler during the summer.”

WalletHub compiled the listing using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, National Climatic Data Center, U.S. Energy Information Administration, and Federal Highway Administration.

Utility Global's H2Gen named one of the best inventions of 2026

Best of 2026

One of the year's most buzzworthy innovations comes from a Houston-based leader in the energy transition. Utility Global's H2Gen recently made Time magazine’s list of the 300 best inventions of 2026.

The H2Gen is an innovative system that produces low-cost clean hydrogen from water and industrial off-gases. The company says the process doesn’t require electricity, a notable claim since hydrogen production typically consumes a lot of power.

"Using a tubular electrochemical cell containing a proprietary electrolyte and water, the company can turn industrial off-gases into hydrogen at scale—no extra electricity required," writes Time. "Bonus: the process also pulls out carbon dioxide as a separate stream, where it can be captured and kept out of the atmosphere.

CEO Parker Meeks tells Time, it's “a practical pathway to decarbonize existing industrial assets."

The startup is on a roll. It has raised $100 million so far in an ongoing Series D round to offer its decarbonization technology at industrial scale around the world.

H2Gen is joined by 10 other inventions with Texas connections onTime's list, as well as one "special mention."

In North Texas, they are:

Samsung
Plano-based Samsung Electronics America pulled off a hat trick this year, with three products making Time’s list. First up is the Galaxy S26 Ultra smartphone. It packs a more powerful camera, Galaxy AI features, and pro-level content creation tools. But Time singled out its new built-in privacy display as the phone’s “biggest selling point.”

Samsung’s Bespoke AI Family Hub refrigerator also got smarter. When AI first came to the Family Hub in 2024, it could recognize some fresh foods, but you still had to log packaged items by hand, Time noted. Now, with Google Gemini built in, the fridge can identify more than 2,000 packaged foods, read handwritten labels, and warn you when food is about to expire. It then uses what’s inside to build grocery lists and suggest recipes.

And for gamers, there’s the Odyssey G8 monitor. Its 6K resolution leapfrogs the 4K standard, delivering what Samsung calls “exceptional visual clarity and detail” on a screen big enough for gaming and multitasking.

OxeFit
Plano-based OxeFit’s XS1 Peak is about the size of a treadmill but works like an entire gym. It can be set up for strength training, simulated skiing or kayaking, Pilates, or rowing. What makes it stand out is a built-in virtual spotter. According to Time, the machine “uses AI, computer vision and sensors to correct the user’s form, change resistance in the middle of a rep and reduce the weight when the user is struggling, much like a human spotter.”

EssilorLuxottica
EssilorLuxottica, the French eyewear giant whose U.S. headquarters is in Farmers Branch, makes Essilor Stellest lenses. The lenses correct nearsightedness while also slowing the eye growth that makes it worse over time. Stellest is the first and only eyeglass lens authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to control myopia, Time said. The lenses look like regular glasses but contain 1,021 tiny lenslets. In a U.S. trial of kids ages 6-12, myopia progression slowed by an average of 71 percent over two years compared with standard lenses.

Helpany
Helpany, a startup based in Phoenix that manufactures its devices in DFW, makes Paul, a ceiling-mounted gadget that uses radar and AI to spot subtle changes in how residents move and flag those at higher risk of falling. Helpany says the technology can cut falls by as much as 72 percent.

Aurora Innovation
Aurora, based in Pittsburgh with a corporate and operations hub in Coppell, rolled out its second-generation Driver 2 system in July. By September, Driver 2 trucks had logged more than 500,000 driverless miles without a single at-fault crash, Time reported, and the company expects 200 of them on the road by the end of 2026.

Colossal Biosciences
Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences built an artificial egg by placing an ultra-thin, transparent silicone membrane inside a rigid 3D-printed cup, letting scientists watch the embryo develop. Twenty-six chickens have already been hatched.

In Austin, they are:
Cedar Park-based Hyliion landed on Time’s list with its Karno Power Module, a modular generator designed to produce power wherever it’s needed. The Karno represents a big pivot for the company. Hyliion got its start building electrified powertrains for 18-wheelers before shifting into power generation after acquiring the Karno generator technology from GE Aerospace. Founded in Pittsburgh in 2015, the company relocated to Cedar Park in 2018.

The other Austin-associated honoree is Moment Energy. As more electric vehicles hit the road, a growing number of their batteries are nearing retirement, while demand for power keeps climbing. Moment Energy found a way to tackle both problems at once. The company’s Megafactory 1, which opened in Vancouver, Canada, in June, turns old EV batteries into modular energy storage systems for hospitals, factories, data centers, and other big power users. “Our goal is to make sure these batteries don’t end up in landfills,” founder Edward Chiang told Time.

In the “Special Mentions” category, Austin-based Renzoe Box gained notice for its refillable custom makeup palette for on-the-go people. Licensed architect René Graham designed the box. She graduated from Houston's Rice University, and was born and raised in Dallas.

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A version of this article first appeared on CultureMap.com.

Houston researchers develop heating method to recover critical minerals from e-waste

hot new research

Researchers at Rice University have developed a new technique to efficiently recycle electronic waste and harvest critical minerals using rapid heating.

Most electronic devices use flame-retardant plastic. The plastic is formulated from a critical metal called antimony.

However, recapturing antimony is typically a challenging task since it first has to be released from the plastic. As it is released, other compounds can form, such as organic bromides, which are toxic and difficult to capture. However, the organic bromides can also be reused and have applications in industrial chemicals when safely captured.

“Conventionally heating the plastic releases the antimony in a volatile and difficult-to-collect form as well as creating and releasing hazardous organic bromide compounds,” Leo Haoxin Ye, first author of the paper and a graduate student at Rice, said in a news release. “Other options are risky or more impractical, such as using strong acids, organic solvents or multistep treatment options.”

To address this issue, leading Rice chemistry professor James Tour, Ye and their team adapted Tour’s flash Joule heating technique, which heats materials to hundreds of degrees Celsius in milliseconds, according to Rice.

The team ground up flame-retardant plastic waste and placed it between two sheets of electrically heated carbon paper before using what’s known as isothermal-clamped flash Joule heating to release and collect the antimony.

The team found that limiting the time the plastic spent in the high temperature range dramatically reduced the production of the hazardous organic bromide compounds. The plastic remained between 200 degrees and 500 degrees Celsius for only 9.4 milliseconds, according to Rice.

Through the process, the team recovered 90 percent of antimony from tested materials and converted 83 percent of the bromide into hydrogen bromide. Their findings were published this month in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering.

“Isothermal-clamped flash Joule heating could improve the speed, safety and practicality of antimony recovery from discarded flame-retardant plastics,” Tour added in the release. “This represents an important step forward to conserving and reusing our critical antimony supply while also regenerating bromide salts for reuse.”

The study noted that the world is currently trending toward producing 82 million metric tons of flame-retardant plastic waste by 2030, which adds to the fact that e-waste is the fastest-growing solid waste stream in the world.

The research was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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