Aqua Metals Nevada Lithium Battery Recycling Plant Becomes Operational

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Aqua Metals, Inc. announced that it has completed equipment installation and commenced operations at its first-of-a-kind lithium battery recycling facility located at the company’s Innovation Center in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center in Nevada. The automated system at the plant allows for immediate recovery of valuable critical minerals from spent lithium batteries.

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The Aqua Metals facility is the first metals recycling facility in North America to recover battery-grade lithium hydroxide from spent batteries in commercial quantities. The closed loop recycling solution, Li AquaRefining technology,  recovers all valuable metals, including high-purity lithium, manganese, cobalt, and nickel from lithium batteries. It uses electricity to recycle, instead of traditional chemical processes, fossil fuels or furnaces.

Steve Cotton, President and CEO, Aqua Metals noted that it is an unprecedented accomplishment for the company and will further drive global push toward electrification. The economically superior process offers a lower cost pathway to recycle critical minerals and achieve net-zero emissions, he added.

The company targets to ramp up the pilot facility to make it capable to process metric tons of black mass per month by the initial quarter of 2023.