Technology
Aepnus wants to create a circular economy for key battery materials
Earlier this 12 months, BASF had to just do that delay opening constructing a battery materials factory in Finland when a court agreed with environmental groups that the corporate didn’t have a good plan for coping with wastewater.
As battery factories are built around the globe, the specter of wastewater threatens to halt their construction. However, one start-up claims that the answer shouldn’t be disposal, but recycling.
Wastewater from these plants flows with sodium sulfate, a byproduct of sulfuric acid and caustic soda, two chemicals utilized in battery production, copper refining and other industries.
“We can create a completely circular economy around these chemicals” – Bilen Akuzum, co-founder and CTO of the corporate Aepnus technologyhe told TechCrunch.
Akuzum and co-founder Lukas Hackl didn’t set out to create a small circular economy, as a substitute they stumbled upon it while touring lithium mining facilities in California and Nevada. A pair of chemists who had been friends since they met of their college cafeteria were exploring possible startup ideas.
“We were thinking about lithium mining or something else in the minerals space,” Akuzum said. “Every time we talked to someone in the industry, they would say, ‘Well, there are actually solutions for lithium extraction. But our activities produce waste and we really don’t know what to do with it.”
After getting back from their trip, Akuzum and Hackl thought in regards to the idea and ultimately decided to improve existing technology to turn this waste into raw materials that the facilities could use of their operations.
The two founded Aepnus to modernize the century-old chloralkali process, which breaks down salts equivalent to sodium sulfate back into the acids and bases that created them.
The company uses electrolyzers to destroy salt, causing it to decompose. Other firms do the identical thing, but may use expensive metals to speed up the reactions. “We don’t use any expensive catalysts in our electrolysers,” Akuzum said.
Aepnus currently ships half-scale models of its devices to customers, who can test the devices in their very own wastewater streams. Wastewater from each plant may contain various pollutants, a few of which should be filtered beforehand. Once they’re depleted, the electrolyzers can start removing sodium sulfate.
For customers, full recycling of sodium sulfate waste should reduce disposal and material costs. And for individuals with distant locations, equivalent to miners, in addition they save on transportation. “Instead of mining companies purchasing these chemicals and trucking them very long distances, we can regenerate them on site from waste,” Akuzum said.
The startup has over 15 clients in various stages, from feasibility studies to testing equipment on a pilot scale. Aepnus recently raised an $8 million seed round to supply more electrolyzers on a pilot scale and develop a commercial-scale version. The round was led by Clean Energy Ventures with participation from Gravity Climate Fund, Impact Science Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Muus Climate Partners and Voyager Ventures.
If Aepnus can produce electrolyzers on a business scale, it’ll be a milestone for the United States. “There are only a few companies around the world that have the expertise to build this type of electrolyzers,” Akuzum said. “Unfortunately, there is not a single company in the United States that has this expertise.”
Technology
Anysphere, which makes the cursor supposedly collect USD 900 million with a valuation of USD 9 billion
Anysphere, producer of coding cursor with AI drive, attracted $ 900 million in the recent financing round by Thrive Capital, Financial Times He informed, citing anonymous sources familiar with the contract.
The report said that Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) and ACCEL also participate in the round, which values about $ 9 billion.
The cursor collected $ 105 million from Thrive, and A16Z with a valuation of $ 2.5 billion, as TechCrunch said in December. Capital Thrive also led this round and in addition participated in A16Z. According to Crunchbase data, the startup has collected over $ 173 million thus far.
It is alleged that investors, including index ventures and a reference point, attempt to support the company, but plainly existing investors don’t want to miss the opportunity to support it.
Other coding start-ups powered by artificial intelligence also attract the interest of investors. Techcrunch announced in February that Windsurf, a rival for Aklesphere, talked about collecting funds at a valuation of $ 3 billion. Openai, an investor in Anysphere, was supposedly I’m attempting to get windsurf for about the same value.
(Tagstransate) A16Z
(*9*)This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
The Chinese retailer has modified the strategy in the face of American tariffs.
Thanks to the executive ordinance, President Donald Trump ended the so -called de minimis principle, which allowed goods value 800 USD or less entering the country without tariffs. It also increases tariffs to Chinese goods by over 100%, forcing each Chinese firms and Shein, in addition to American giants, similar to Amazon to adapt plans and price increases.
CNBC reports that this was also affected, and American buyers see “import fees” from 130% to 150% added to their accounts. Now, nevertheless, the company is not sending the goods directly from China to the United States. Instead, it only displays the offers of products available in American warehouses, while goods sent from China are listed as outside the warehouse.
“He actively recruits American sellers to join the platform,” said the spokesman ago. “The transfer is to help local sellers reach more customers and develop their companies.”
(tagstotransate) tariffs
The recently released Google AI model is worse in some security tests than its predecessor, in line with the company’s internal comparative test.
IN Technical report Google, published this week, reveals that his Flash Gemini 2.5 model is more likely that he generates a text that violates its security guidelines than Gemini 2.0 Flash. In two indicators “text security for text” and “image security to the text”, Flash Gemini 2.5 will withdraw 4.1% and 9.6% respectively.
Text safety for the text measures how often the model violates Google guidelines, making an allowance for the prompt, while image security to the text assesses how close the model adheres to those boundaries after displaying the monitors using the image. Both tests are automated, not supervised by man.
In an e-mail, Google spokesman confirmed that Gemini 2.5 Flash “performs worse in terms of text safety for text and image.”
These surprising comparative results appear when AI is passing in order that their models are more acceptable – in other words, less often refuse to answer controversial or sensitive. In the case of the latest Llam Meta models, he said that he fought models in order to not support “some views on others” and answers to more “debated” political hints. Opeli said at the starting of this yr that he would improve future models, in order to not adopt an editorial attitude and offers many prospects on controversial topics.
Sometimes these efforts were refundable. TechCrunch announced on Monday that the default CHATGPT OPENAI power supply model allowed juvenile to generate erotic conversations. Opeli blamed his behavior for a “mistake”.
According to Google Technical Report, Gemini 2.5 Flash, which is still in view, follows instructions more faithfully than Gemini 2.0 Flash, including instructions exceeding problematic lines. The company claims that regression might be partially attributed to false positives, but in addition admits that Gemini 2.5 Flash sometimes generates “content of violation” when it is clearly asked.
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“Of course, there is a tension between (after instructions) on sensitive topics and violations of security policy, which is reflected in our assessment,” we read in the report.
The results from Meepmap, reference, which can examine how models react to sensitive and controversial hints, also suggest that Flash Gemini 2.5 is much less willing to refuse to reply controversial questions than Flash Gemini 2.0. Testing the TechCrunch model through the AI OpenRoutter platform has shown that he unsuccessfully writes essays to support human artificial intelligence judges, weakening the protection of due protection in the US and the implementation of universal government supervisory programs.
Thomas Woodside, co -founder of the Secure AI Project, said that the limited details given by Google in their technical report show the need for greater transparency in testing models.
“There is a compromise between the instruction support and the observation of politics, because some users may ask for content that would violate the rules,” said Woodside Techcrunch. “In this case, the latest Flash model Google warns the instructions more, while breaking more. Google does not present many details about specific cases in which the rules have been violated, although they claim that they are not serious. Not knowing more, independent analysts are difficult to know if there is a problem.”
Google was already under fire for his models of security reporting practices.
The company took weeks to publish a technical report for the most talented model, Gemini 2.5 Pro. When the report was finally published, it initially omitted the key details of the security tests.
On Monday, Google published a more detailed report with additional security information.
(Tagstotransate) Gemini
Anysphere, which makes the cursor supposedly collect USD 900 million with a valuation of USD 9 billion
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