Dutch association asks if Aqua Metals has changed lead-acid battery recycling forever

Netherlands-based Auto Recycling Nederland B.V. (ARN) has posted an essay asking whether the electrochemical-based lead-acid battery recycling process of United States-based Aqua Metals is about to change the global landscape of that recycling sector.

COVID-19 and its ripple effects have caused financial difficulties for many companies, but one notable impact was the seeking of insolvency protection measures within days of each other of two of the world’s largest lead-acid battery recycling firms.

Freelance writer Arjen van der Sar, in a June 12 blog post on the GreenLight.nl website operated by ARN, examines the seemingly better fortunes of Aqua Metals. He characterizes the company as “currently facing a breakthrough with a self-developed, ‘clean’ alternative based on water” for recycling lead acid batteries.

The ARN article compares the new process with the traditional method wherein “recycling companies extract the material from lead batteries by means of an energy-intensive and relatively polluting process.”

van der Sar says the existing process has been globally successful at recovering the lead in spent batteries and preparing it to be used in new products. However, he continues, “The core of the current conventional method is that the lead is processed at high temperatures, which costs a lot of energy.” In Europe this is carried out, van der Sar adds, “by specialized companies, mainly operating in Belgium, Germany and France.”

He continues, “The question is how long this method will be used, now that the new AquaRefining process is about to break through in the United States. There is interest from all over the world in this new environmentally friendly recycling technology for lead-acid batteries. In 2019, the method was first applied on a commercial and large scale basis at the Aqua Metals factory in Reno, Nevada.”

Is the filing of bankruptcy protection by existing secondary lead smelters a hint at what will come next? “Aqua Metals’ strategic partner Clarios (a U.S.-based battery producer spun off from Johnson Controls) has the first right to roll out the technology in North America,” writes van der Sar. He then quotes Aqua Metals Investor Relations Manager Glen Akselrod as saying, “If that right expires in two years, I expect the technology to be licensed to partners in North America and around the world. There is a global market and the strategy is also focused on that.”

In looking at the emerging Aqua Metals technique, van der Sar writes, “As with regular methods, used batteries are separated into hard metals, plastics and lead paste. This lead paste (about 50 percent of the battery) enters the AquaRefining process. This is the electrochemical alternative to regular lead acid battery recycling, which uses electrolysis. To produce very pure lead, AquaRefining uses a closed process based on room temperature and water combined with non-toxic, biodegradable organic elements. The profit: lower emissions and fewer challenges with regard to environmental permits, and a lead purity of no less than 99.996 percent.”

Another potential advantage of the Aqua Metals process, according to van der Sar, is a “modular and scalable design” that “allows the installations to be implemented in stand-alone facilities or licensed for placement in existing battery recycling plants. Each module is designed to produce 2.5 to 3 tons of high-quality lead per day.”

He quotes Akselrod as saying that though the technology is new, it “is competitive in cost levels with the existing recycling methods for lead from lead-acid batteries, and potentially even cheaper.”

On the environmental front, “Because it is no longer necessary to dry battery paste for processing in an oven, the amount of lead particles in the air is reduced. In addition, the processing of lead paste through this method eliminates the emissions associated with oven processing,” writes van der Sar.

The full ARN blog post can be found on this web page.