Three McGill students didn’t just learn about clean tech-they launched their own startup to market a new technology developed during their graduate studies. “We arrived on the scene at the right time and place,” says Samson Bowen-Bronet (BEng’17, MEng’21). While an undergraduate, he took two thermodynamics courses with Prof. Jeffrey Bergthorson in the Department of Mechanical Engineering that examined energy systems within the context of the climate crisis. This sparked his curiosity about doing something that could have a real impact.
Bowen-Bronet continued to work with Bergthorson, who runs McGill’s Alternative Fuels Laboratory, and began working on a carbon-free energy solution that uses iron-based powder as an energy storage medium with fellow student Martin Aralov (BEng’17, MEng’21). In December 2022 Aralov, Bergthorson and Bowen-Bronet launched Altiro Energy, choosing the name Altiro as a combination of “alternative” and “iron” and bringing on Nic Pinkerton (BEng’20, MEng’23) as Chief Operating Officer.
To date, Altiro has worked with Hydro-Québec, Tata Steel, Hoeganaes Corporation and Rio Tinto, and recently won the People’s Choice award at the Climate Solutions Festival in Montreal in May 2023.
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