Mr. Melsert, age 38, is the CTO at American Battery Metals Corporation, overseeing all aspects of the Company’s battery metal extraction and battery recycling divisions. Mr. Melsert specializes in the development and scale-up of highly innovative first-of-kind systems. This development process consists of fundamental conceptual design, rigorous thermodynamic and process modeling, design and fabrication of bench-scale prototypes, construction and operation of integrated pilot systems, and implementation of commercial-scale systems.

Joining the Company in August 2019, Mr. Melsert has been accelerating the development and implementation of the Company’s proprietary battery metal extraction technologies and battery recycling programs with the planning and construction of a multi-functional facility. Since June 2019, Mr. Melsert has been the CEO of M2 Thermal Solutions whose first-of-kind residential air conditioning system, that exhibits a disruptive ~400% improvement in energy efficiency over current state-of-the-art systems, has been accepted as one of eight finalist designs in the Global Cooling Prize challenge.

From May 2015 to March 2019 Mr. Melsert served as R&D Manager for Tesla’s Giga Factory Battery Materials Processing group. He founded and led this cross-functional team of mechanical and chemical engineers who implemented first principles design to develop novel first-of-kind systems for the extraction, purification, and synthesis of precursor and active battery materials. This development scope included the fundamental conceptual design, rigorous thermodynamic and process modeling, design and fabrication of bench-scale prototypes, construction and operation of integrated pilot systems, and implementation of commercial scale systems for the processing of battery materials. During this time Mr. Melsert was awarded 5 different patents.

From April 2013 to May 2015 Mr. Melsert served as R&D Manager, Advanced Energy & Transportation Technologies for Southern Research where he led a project team of 5-10 chemical/mechanical engineers in fundamental design of first-of-kind systems throughout the energy systems field. While there, Mr. Melsert wrote and won several DOE grants in addition to winning the company-wide “Invention of the Year” 2015, presented at ARPA-E Innovation Summit. From September 2010 to March 2013 Mr. Melsert served as an Energy Systems Consultant for the Advanced Technology Development Center in Atlanta Georgia.

From January 2008 to June 2011 Mr. Melsert was the Program Manager at General Motors while also serving as the Lead Development Engineer for a solar driven chemical heat engine from May 2008 to December 2018 which was sponsored by King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. From August 2005 to September 2009 Mr. Melsert was the Lead Development Engineer for C2 Biofuels.

In 2005 Mr. Melsert worked at Lockheed Martin as a Fluid Dynamics Engineer. Mr. Melsert has 12 publications to his name written between 2007 and 2015. His education includes an MS in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from Georgia Tech awarded in 2007 and 2011, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering with Minors in Engineering Mechanics, French, and International Studies from Penn State University awarded in 2004.