Hexium is building a laser-powered process to separate lithium-6 from lithium-7 using an adapted atomic vapor laser isotope separation (AVLIS) technique. The company was founded by Charlie Jerrott and Jacob Peterson after they identified a shortage in fusion fuel supply chains and had been operating in stealth. Hexium’s system uses picometer-precise, relatively low-power lasers to ionize lithium-6 in vapor clouds, draw the ions to charged plates, condense them, and package the isotope for sale. Hexium plans to sell lithium-6 to fusion companies for tritium breeding and reactor shielding, while selling the remaining lithium-7 to conventional nuclear operators as a cooling-water additive. Over the coming year the company will use its seed funding to build and run a pilot plant and, if successful, replicate the design modularly to produce tens to hundreds of kilograms of lithium-6. The team emphasizes small-footprint facilities that can be parallelized to achieve economics at modest scales.

Total raised

$8M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Apr 2025