October 25, 2018: Aqua Metals, the battery recycling firm announced on October 12 it can offer lead ingots to its customers as well as the larger lead blocks it has been supplying.
“The ingots are the preferred lead format for our battery manufacturer customers,” said Steve Cotton, Aqua Metals president.
“We have overcome the technical hurdles and are now making lead ingots at a steady state, which will allow us to ship our ultra-pure AquaRefined lead directly to battery manufacturers for production and also allow them to test our lead for improved battery performance and life.”
AquaMetals is also working on technology that will enable it to recapture and reuse the electrolyte from the batteries it recycles, Cotton said.
“Our engineers have designed the process and we have procured the equipment that we believe will allow us to recapture this electrolyte, which will greatly improve our contribution margin per tonne of lead,” he said.
“We are deploying these improvements in two phases. We estimate phase one will take us up to 75% towards our target for electrolyte recapture and phase two will complete the remaining 25%.
“We have completed testing of phase one and have begun installing the equipment. We have also begun testing phase two, and are very pleased with the initial results.”
Cotton said if upgrades to the electrolyte management could meet targets to be completed by the end of the year, the company could be in a position to roll out additional modules.
Aqua Metals has also been pursuing a raft of patents in a variety of countries, already having filed for 22 US and foreign patents this year.
“While we continue to commercialize our breakthrough electrochemical battery recycling process, AquaRefining, we remain focused on building upon our already comprehensive patent position,” said Cotton.
He said there were more than 90 patents pending in the US alone, and 20 in countries including Ukraine, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, Korea and Japan.
“We have a tremendous opportunity to help transform the $20+ billion global lead commodity market, which is why we’ve instituted such an aggressive patent strategy,” he said.
Cotton said he believed the company’s technology could transform the global lead commodity market.
