titanium
(2)
Duranium
Duranium is a Y Combinator (S25) advanced-materials company reshoring U.S. production of critical metals - titanium, magnesium, aluminum, zirconium and hafnium. It modernizes carbochlorination metallurgy with a novel reactor that recirculates CO and chlorine streams back into feedstock and spins off a saleable co-product (bleaching agents/hypochlorite), aiming to match Chinese-level pricing without subsidies while eliminating direct emissions. Founded in 2025 by CEO Brenden Prins-McKinney and CTO Berkley Noble, the company targets a pilot facility by June 2026 and roughly 12% of the U.S. magnesium market by 2029.
Brenden Prins-McKinney
Brenden Prins-McKinney is the co-founder and CEO of Duranium (YC S25), an Alameda, California company working to bring critical light metal production - titanium, magnesium, aluminum, zirconium and hafnium - back to American soil. A Stanford Law graduate and Knight-Hennessy Scholar with a research background at McKinsey and a stint as a Goldman Sachs banker, he advised the Department of Defense on reshoring critical chemical production before deciding to build the supply chain himself. He pairs a policy-and-finance brain with chemistry borrowed from the 1950s, modernized so the U.S. can make metals it currently buys almost entirely from China and Russia.