April 25, 2019: Aurelius Environmental, the lead battery recycling start-up working with Cambridge University to develop clean methods of recycling, has received a £1.5 million ($1.9 million) grant from the UK government, the company confirmed on April 16.

The money, which came out of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, will be used to upgrade equipment at Aurelius’s site in the Midlands, UK.

CEO Miles Freeman, a former operations director at Ecobat, says Aurelius’s hydrometallurgical process uses citric acid as part of a process to remove battery impurities and, although it uses heat as part of the recycling process, it does not use a smelter.

This, the firm claims, reduces the costs of recycling and related energy for smelting and the size of the plant.
Freeman says battery manufacturers are already testing the firm’s produced lead, and the company has a prototype site in Brazil.