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Heliosand has set itself the mission of reducing the carbon footprint of heavy industries by using concentrated solar energy. This startup is part of the “100 startups to invest in 2023” selection by Challenges.
Providing solar energy to decarbonize heavy industry is nothing revolutionary. However, Heliosand has taken an innovative low-tech approach. The young company, founded in Lyon in 2019 by physicist Rafik Kheffache (40 years old, University of Paris 7), urban planner Cécile Toussaint (36 years old, University Paul Valéry of Montpellier), and engineer Geoffrey Marino (30 years old, Arts et Métiers), offers a mobile device equipped with a magnifying glass capable of heating material up to 2000 degrees Celsius, effectively “boiling the rock,” as explained by Rafik Kheffache. Using solar heat, the startup can “transform sand into glass beads and achieve sufficient granulation to make concrete” – a process particularly suited to desert environments.
Moreover, Heliosand is in the process of creating a subsidiary with a sovereign wealth fund from Dubai. Initial tests with the first operational models, produced in the company’s workshop in Saint-Marcellin (Isère), are scheduled for Mauritania in May, followed by the United States and Norway during the summer. In France, the process has caught the interest of Vinci. Collaborations are also being launched with cement producer Vicat and EDF. Heliosand’s solar furnace will also be used to process sediments and sludge, waste products from power plants, to turn them into concrete material.
With these preliminary projects, Heliosand has recorded revenue of 15,000 euros. A first round of funding of 400,000 euros has now enabled the company to move towards the industrialization of its process, with the construction of larger machines featuring 10-meter-diameter lenses (compared to the current 2-meter models). Heliosand had already begun deploying its machines in the Hedjaz desert (Saudi Arabia) for construction work related to the futuristic city of Neom.