(Kitco News) - Metals recycling technology company Aqua Metals (NASDAQ: AQMS) today announced that it has completed equipment installation and is now 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.
Located at the company’s Innovation Center in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center in Nevada, the pilot is now operational with the introduction of feedstock into the automated system, enabling immediate recovery of valuable critical minerals from spent lithium batteries, the company said in its news release.
This puts the company on track to become the first in North America to recover battery-grade lithium hydroxide from spent lithium-ion batteries in commercial quantities, it added.
“This is an unprecedented accomplishment for Aqua Metals, and for the global push toward electrification,” stated President and CEO Steve Cotton. “We believe that Aqua Metals is the first company to take a vision beyond the laboratory, by establishing an industrial-scale, dedicated, US-based recycling facility, built to continuously produce metric tons of high-purity minerals from spent lithium-ion batteries.”
He added, “We are confident that Aqua Metals is now positioned to be the first metals recycling facility in North America to recover battery-grade lithium hydroxide from spent batteries in commercial quantities, and to initiate sales of recycled critical minerals into both metals markets and the lithium-ion battery supply chain.”
The company’s Li AquaRefining™ technology is a low-emissions, closed-loop recycling solution capable of recovering all valuable metals, including high-purity lithium, manganese, cobalt, and nickel from lithium batteries.
Aqua Metals said that its goal is to demonstrate through the pilot operations its belief that Li AquaRefining is an economically superior process that offers a lower cost pathway to recycle critical minerals and achieve net-zero emissions.
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