Aqua Metals, 6K Energy to develop low-carbon battery materials

Aqua Metals Inc., headquartered in Reno, Nevada, has partnered with 6K Energy, a producer of sustainable materials for lithium-ion batteries, to develop low-carbon battery materials, and the companies plan to establish a long-term agreement for 6K Energy’s PlusCAM (cathode active material) manufacturing plant in Jackson, Tennessee.

According to a news release, the companies share the vision of creating a domestic low-carbon supply chain for critical battery materials and advancing production methods for sustainable lithium-ion batteries.

Aqua Metals says the companies have initiative a nonrecurring engineering (NRE) agreement to develop low-carbon technology to convert critical metals into battery-grade cathode active material precursors (pCAM), which are essential to 6K Energy’s advanced cathode manufacturing.

David Regan, vice president of commercial at Aqua Metals, tells Recycling Today that the low-carbon pCAM conversion technology currently in development is based on Aqua Metals’ patented AquaRefining approach to recycling and refining metals, where the company replaces chemical catalysts with clean electricity. It’s also a closed-loop process, reducing water consumption and regenerating the solvents used.

“Typical pCAM production relies on one-time-use chemicals as a catalyst, requiring trainloads of chemicals coming in and creating tons of landfill waste going out as a byproduct of the chemical reactions,” Regan says. “Instead of those chemical catalysts, we use electricity as the activator for the transformation of pure metals into pCAM, specific to 6K Energy’s CAM and cathode manufacturing process.”

Aqua Metals is developing its clean metals recycling campus in the Tahoe-Reno area, which will be the source of recycled materials for the partnership with 6K Energy. Regan adds that this process is not specific to recycled materials, either. Through the NRE agreement, the companies will first convert virgin critical metals and later recycled materials into battery-grade pCAMs.

“The first phase of that campus will process 3,000 tons per year of black mass into pure metals using clean electricity," Regan says. "Virgin and recycled metals of the same purity levels are indistinguishable, which is part of the reason why Aqua Metals recycles lithium batteries into pure metals instead of metal salts or alloys. Some of the ‘virgin’ metals we will use at first from metals suppliers may very well have some recycled materials mixed in from other sources.”

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According to Aqua Metals, pCAMs are expensive components in lithium batteries and are currently manufactured almost exclusively in China. Aqua Metals says this partnership creates low-carbon resources for battery and electric vehicle manufacturers as well as enables greater supply independence at a competitive cost and less production time than imported materials from foreign sources.

“Aqua Metals believes that the key to sustainable energy lies in leveraging the full potential of recycled materials in manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, building a circular supply chain domestically and minimizing the environmental impact of the clean energy industry,” Aqua Metals President and CEO Steve Cotton says. “Our commitment to pioneering low-carbon, closed-loop battery recycling powered by electricity aligns perfectly with 6K Energy’s groundbreaking sustainable cathode manufacturing, and our partnership signifies a major step towards U.S. leadership in the next generation of net-zero battery materials and technologies.”

In addition, 6K Energy was awarded a $50 million Department of Energy grant opportunity that will partially fund its $200 million PlusCAM factory in Jackson, which is scheduled to open in 2025. The conversion process already in development is based on Aqua Metals’ patented AquaRefining technology, and it is designed to work with both virgin materials and sustainably recycled content supplied by Aqua Metals.

As part of the agreement, 6K Energy will fund the project for low-carbon CAM precursors (pCAM) conversion in 2023, and the successful completion of the development project will lead to a long-term supply agreement for the two companies.

Aqua Metals says the companies plan to co-locate pCAM manufacturing with 6K Energy’s PlusCAM factory. The factory will serve as a UniMelt plasma cathode manufacturing plant, providing low-cost, sustainable production of battery material in the U.S., with a production capacity of 13,000 tons per year.

Aqua Metals operates a lithium battery recycling facility at its Li AquaRefining pilot and is developing a five-acre, 10,000-ton-per-year clean metals recycling campus in its Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center. The company's AquaRefining recycling technology recovers critical metals from spent lithium batteries using electricity in a closed loop.