BLUEMagnet Raises Seed Funding to Deploy Radioactive Waste Solution in Nuclear Plants Globally

BLUEMagnet, a South Korean startup developing advanced materials technology for radioactive liquid waste treatment at nuclear power plants, has closed a seed funding round led by KAIST Venture Investment Holdings.

Founded in 2024, BLUEMagnet addresses one of the nuclear industry’s most persistent challenges: safely removing radioactive contaminants from liquid waste generated during plant operations and decommissioning. Investors cited the company’s proprietary new-material technology, strong growth potential within the nuclear sector, and global commercialization prospects as key factors behind the investment.

The nuclear industry is experiencing a global resurgence, driven by the rapid expansion of AI data centers and carbon neutrality mandates. As development accelerates across small modular reactors (SMRs), floating nuclear power plants (FNPPs), and next-generation reactor designs, the importance of effective radioactive waste treatment is growing in tandem.

Radioactive liquid waste from nuclear plants contains a range of radionuclides — including cesium (Cs), strontium (Sr), and cobalt (Co) — and their safe removal remains one of the sector’s core technical challenges. Most plants currently rely on ion exchange resins to treat such waste, but the technology cannot distinguish radioactive nuclides from ordinary ions, leading to early resin saturation and large volumes of secondary waste.

To solve this, BLUEMagnet has developed NuMagneto™, a magnetically functional new-material platform. Unlike conventional composites that simply attach magnetic particles to Prussian blue or its analogues, NuMagneto™ is engineered so that the Prussian blue-based material itself carries magnetic properties — a fundamentally different approach. A single material simultaneously removes cesium, strontium, and cobalt, and can be recovered within seconds using an external magnetic field. The platform’s defining strength is that it combines selective adsorption and magnetic recovery in one substance while remaining scalable for industrial mass production.

BLUEMagnet’s co-founder and CTO, Hyejin Ok, led the design and development of NuMagneto™. To overcome the productivity bottlenecks that have long plagued selective adsorbents, she developed a proprietary OHL-IMS process — an environmentally friendly, cost-efficient manufacturing method that resolves the complex fabrication, low yield, and high production costs associated with earlier technologies, bringing mass-production viability to nuclear industry applications. Through this approach, BLUEMagnet expects to reduce radioactivity concentrations in nuclear waste effluents, extend the service life of conventional ion exchange resins, and dramatically cut both waste volumes and treatment costs.

The company has also been building out its global commercialization capabilities. In early 2025, Kwango Lee joined as COO, bringing deep expertise from DuPont, where he led Asia-Pacific manufacturing innovation and equipment reliability consulting. He now oversees the company’s domestic nuclear partnership strategy and European market entry.

Junhyun Ahn, an executive at KAIST Youth Startup Investment Holdings, said BLUEMagnet presents a highly original solution to a problem the nuclear industry has struggled with for decades. He highlighted the platform’s ability to simultaneously remove multiple problematic radionuclides — cesium, cobalt, and strontium — as a genuine game-changer, and noted that the company had built a commercially viable mass-production process alongside its core technology.

“Selective adsorbent technology has long been considered the Holy Grail of nuclear waste treatment,” said Giseok Lee, CEO of BLUEMagnet. “NuMagneto™ is a new-concept platform that combines multi-nuclide removal and magnetic recovery in a single material. With this seed investment, we will accelerate domestic nuclear demonstration projects and overseas commercialization, and over the long term, build NuMagnetoSYS — an AI-powered, unmanned automated treatment platform — to set a new global standard for nuclear waste management.”