Aqua Metals, Inc. is engaged in the business of applying its commercialized clean, water-based recycling technology principles to develop the clean and cost-efficient recycling solutions for both lead and lithium-ion (‘Li’) batteries.
The company’s recycling process is a patented hydro- and electrometallurgical technology that is a novel, proprietary and patented process the company developed and named AquaRefining. AquaRefining is a low-emissions, closed-loop recycling technology that replaces...
Aqua Metals, Inc. is engaged in the business of applying its commercialized clean, water-based recycling technology principles to develop the clean and cost-efficient recycling solutions for both lead and lithium-ion (‘Li’) batteries.
The company’s recycling process is a patented hydro- and electrometallurgical technology that is a novel, proprietary and patented process the company developed and named AquaRefining. AquaRefining is a low-emissions, closed-loop recycling technology that replaces polluting furnaces and hazardous chemicals with electricity-powered electroplating to recover valuable metals and materials from spent batteries with higher purity, lower emissions, and with minimal waste. The modular ‘Aqualyzers’ cleanly generate ultra-pure metal one atom at a time, closing the sustainability loop for the rapidly growing energy storage economy.
The company is in the process of demonstrating that Li AquaRefining, which is fundamentally non-polluting, can create the highest quality and highest yields of recovered minerals from lithium-ion batteries with lower waste streams and lower costs than existing alternatives.
The company’s focus for the lead market is providing equipment and licensing of the company’s lead acid battery recycling technologies in an enabler model which allows the company to work with anyone in the industry globally and address the entire marketplace. The company’s focus for the lithium market includes operating its first-of-a-kind lithium battery recycling facility, utilizing electricity to recycle instead of intensive chemical processes, fossil fuels, or high-temperature furnaces.
In February 2021, the company announced its entry into the lithium-ion battery (LiB) recycling market through a key provisional patent the company filed that applies the same innovative AquaRefining approach. In August 2021, the company had established its Innovation Center in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) focused on applying the company’s proven technology to LiB recycling research, development and prototyping. The company’s strategic decision to apply its proven clean, closed-loop hydrometallurgical and electrochemical recycling experience to lithium-ion battery recycling is designed to meet the growing demand for critical metals driven by the global transition to electric vehicles; growth in Internet data centers; and alternative energy applications, including solar, wind, and grid-scale storage.
During the first half of 2022, the company announced the company’s ability to recover copper, lithium hydroxide, nickel, cobalt and manganese dioxide from lithium-ion battery ‘black mass’ at bench scale at the company’s Innovation Center. During 2022, the company built its fully-integrated pilot system, located within the company’s Innovation Center, which is designed to enable Aqua Metals to be the first company in North America to recycle battery minerals from black mass, sell them in the U.S. and position the company as the first sustainable LiB recycler in North America to align with the U.S. government’s intention of retaining strategic battery minerals within the domestic supply chain.
During 2022, the company conducted environmental comparisons based on Argonne National Lab’s modeling of lithium battery supply chains – called EverBatt. The initial results indicate that AquaRefining is a cleaner and more sustainable approach to LiB recycling, producing far less CO2 waste streams than smelting or chemical-driven hydrometallurgical processes on the market. In December 2022, the company completed equipment installation and began to operate the company’s first-of-a-kind LiB recycling facility, utilizing renewable electricity as the reagent to recycle instead of intensive chemical processes, fossil fuels, or high-temperature furnaces. In January of 2023, Aqua Metals recovered its first metals from recycling lithium batteries using the patent-pending Li AquaRefining process.
In February 2023, the company acquired a five-acre recycling campus at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center (TRIC). When fully developed, the facility the company envision is designed to process up to 10,000 tonnes of lithium-ion battery material each year using the company’s proprietary Li AquaRefining technology. Subject to the company’s receipt of the required additional capital, the company expects to complete development of phase one, including all equipment installation, by mid-2024 and to commence the commissioning and operation at the new campus in the second half of 2024. The company is planning for a phased development of the campus, beginning with the already commenced redevelopment of an existing building on-site into the first commercial-scale Li AquaRefinery, targeting 3,000 tons per annum (tpa) capacity in phase one. In January through March of 2024, the company has made significant progress on the construction of the planned first phase of the commercial Li AquaRefinery.
Aqua Metals is seeking to reinvent metal recycling with its patented and patent-pending AquaRefining technologies. Aqua Metals is focused on developing cleaner and safer metals recycling through innovation. Aqua Metals can expand the development of breakthrough technologies for sustainable metal recycling and deliver high-value critical minerals back into the manufacturing supply chain while reducing emissions and toxic byproducts and creating much safer work environments.
Aqua Metals has invested in breakthrough metals recycling methodologies that are environmentally responsible, economically competitive, and will help retain critical strategic metals within the U.S. while enabling domestically produced, sustainably produced, recycled metals to enter the supply chain and lower sole reliance on unsafe and toxic mining operations. Since 2015, Aqua Metals has developed breakthrough metal recycling technologies that utilize a clean, closed-loop process that can produce ultra-high purity metals. AquaRefining is designed to deliver raw materials back into the manufacturing supply chain, and replaces the need for polluting furnaces and hazardous chemicals with electricity-powered electroplating to recover valuable metals and materials from spent batteries with higher purity, lower emissions, and minimal waste.
Aqua Metals' regenerative electro-hydrometallurgical recycling method potentially offers a substantial improvement over traditional pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical recycling techniques, which produce much higher emissions, lower recovery rates, and significant landfill waste. The AquaRefining process has the potential to vastly reduce the environmental impact of recycling lithium batteries as compared to other processes while providing a higher yield of high-purity metals essential for the burgeoning U.S. battery manufacturing industry.
The company is in the process of demonstrating that Li AquaRefining can create the highest quality and highest yields of recovered minerals from lithium-ion batteries, with lower waste streams and lower costs than alternatives. With the proven ability to recover valuable metals from lithium-ion batteries at the company’s pilot facility in the TRIC, the company’s intention is to demonstrate its ability to process commercial quantities of high-purity lithium hydroxide and/or carbonate, nickel, cobalt, manganese dioxide, and copper in pure forms that can be sold to the general metals and superalloy markets, and can be made into battery precursor compound materials with proven processes that are already used in the battery industry.
The company is also exploring additional novel applications of AquaRefining across metals recycling industries at the company’s Innovation Center, including recycling emerging battery chemistries and opportunities to develop additional products for sale to customer specifications.
Markets
Aqua Metals’ AquaRefining process produces high purity metals and alloys that can be returned into the battery manufacturing supply chain or sold into metals markets for use across various advanced manufacturing industries.
AquaRefining Process
The company developed AquaRefining to be a cleaner and modular alternative to smelting and chemical-based recycling methods. The company’s process has two key elements, both of which are integral to the company’s issued patents and pending-patent applications. The first is the company’s use of proprietary, non-toxic solvents that dissolves metal compounds. The second is a proprietary electrochemical process and the company’s modular Aqualyzer cells that selectively target each critical element and converts the dissolved metal compounds into high purity metals and/or salts.
The AquaRefining process begins with the processing of crushed used batteries either in the form of paste (for LAB) or, black mass (for LIB). The active materials are first processed to remove sulfur and then dissolved in the company’s solvent. Metals are plated from the solvent using the company’s patented and patent-pending process allowing the solvent to be reused.
The company has demonstrated at bench scale and subsequently in its pilot facility that the company’s lithium battery AquaRefining process can generate cobalt, lithium hydroxide or carbonate, copper, nickel, and manganese dioxide from lithium-ion battery black mass. A significant benefit of the company’s AquaRefining process is that it can produce higher yields of higher purity, and thus higher value product than that derived from primary smelters with product from secondary sources.
Another significant benefit of the company’s process is that the company designed its AquaRefining equipment to be manufactured on a purpose-built production line in standard sized Aqualyzers. This is not possible with the smelting process, as smelters need to be constructed on site. This gives the company the ability to provide AquaRefining systems with varying capacities to meet the specific needs of potential customers and suppliers. The company has also developed an integrated software and portal called PureMetrics that keeps track of production and key operating metrics.
Project Site
Aqua Metals is in the process of building a new lithium-ion battery recycling facility to be located within Storey County, Nevada (the ‘Project’). The Project is located at 2955 & 2999 Waltham Way, McCarran, NV 89434 (the ‘Commercial Facility’). Aqua Metals operates a demonstration scale facility at 60 Denmark Drive, McCarran, NV 89434 (the ‘Innovation Center’), which utilizes the equivalent equipment and technology as is expected to be constructed and operated in the Project.
Business Model
Aqua Metals is engaged in the business of applying its commercialized clean, water-based recycling technology principles to develop the clean and cost-efficient recycling solutions for both lead and lithium-ion (‘Li’) batteries. The company’s recycling process is a patented hydrometallurgical and electrochemical technology that is a novel, proprietary and patented process the company developed and named AquaRefining. AquaRefining is a low-emissions, closed-loop recycling technology that replaces polluting furnaces and hazardous chemicals with electricity-powered electroplating to recover valuable metals and materials from spent batteries with higher purity, lower emissions, and with minimal waste. The ‘Aqualyzers’ cleanly generate ultra-pure metal one atom at a time, closing the sustainability loop for the rapidly growing energy storage economy.
The company is applying its sustainable recycling technology principles with the goal of developing the cleanest and most cost-efficient recycling solution for lithium-ion batteries. The company’s process has the potential to produce higher quality products at a lower operating cost without the damaging effects of furnaces and greenhouse emissions. The company expects to recover lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate, copper, nickel, cobalt, and other compounds in a salable form to either be sold directly to lithium battery CAM manufactures or the commodities market.
The company’s business strategy is based on the pursuit of building and operating Li AquaRefining recycling capacity to meet the growing demand for critical metals in lithium-ion batteries driven by innovations in automobile batteries, growth in internet data centers, and alternative energy applications, including solar, wind, and grid-scale storage.
The company is in the process of demonstrating that Li AquaRefining, which is fundamentally non-polluting, can create the highest quality and highest yields of recovered minerals from lithium-ion batteries with lower waste streams and lower costs than existing alternatives. Throughout 2023 and now into 2024, the company has demonstrated at its pilot facility the company’s ability to recover key valuable minerals in lithium-ion batteries, such as lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate, copper, nickel, cobalt, and other compounds. The company’s intention is to process commercial quantities of nickel, cobalt, and copper in a pure metal form that can be sold to the general metals and superalloy markets and can be made into battery precursor compound materials with known processes already used in the mining industry. The company has operated the first Li AquaRefining pilot plant throughout 2023. The location for the pilot demonstration facility is the Innovation Center with expansion to happen at the company’s new 5-acre recycling campus to commercial quantities. Once fully completed, the company’s commercial facility is designed to process ~10,000 tonnes / year or more of battery materials, with the company’s first phase, which would be enough material to build ~100,000 average EVs or ~400,000 average home energy storage systems. The company is proceeding with a phased development approach, and commenced phase one of the company’s campus in 2023, with a target capacity of 3,000 tonnes per year.
The company’s focus for the lithium market includes operating its first-of-a-kind lithium battery recycling facility, utilizing electricity to recycle instead of intensive chemical processes, fossil fuels, or high-temperature furnaces. The company is also exploring partnership and/or joint venture agreements, particularly as the company’s Li AquaRefining matures. Aqua Metals is in a position to become one of the few critical minerals recovery players for which the company’s environmental and economic value proposition should generate both great commercial wins and potentially government grants to accelerate the company’s expansion and progress.
The company is evolving its business model to commercialize its technology optimally across multiple locations.
Intellectual Property Rights
Patent Portfolio
The company has secured 3 U.S. patents, 32 international patents, and 3 allowances (international). In addition to the U.S. patents, the company has international patents/allowances in the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization, African Intellectual Property Organization, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, the Eurasian Patent Organization, European Union, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, South Korea, South Africa, Ukraine, and Vietnam. The company also has 32 U.S. and foreign patent applications pending with patent applications pending in 16 additional non-U.S. jurisdictions, across six distinct patent applications relating to certain elements of the technology underlying the company’s AquaRefining process and related apparatus and chemical formulations.
Trademark Portfolio
The company has filed for trademark registration in the U.S. and foreign countries for the following trademarks: AQUA METALS (11 foreign countries), AQUAREFINING (10 foreign countries), AQMS (the U.S. only), and AQUAREFINERY (9 foreign countries).
History
Aqua Metals, Inc. was founded in 2014 as a Delaware corporation. The company was incorporated in 2014.
