![Inside the Aqua Metals Li AquaRefining pilot facility in Nevada's Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center.](/remote/aHR0cHM6Ly9naWVjZG4uYmxvYi5jb3JlLndpbmRvd3MubmV0L2ZpbGV1cGxvYWRzL2ltYWdlLzIwMjMvMDIvMjIvYXF1YS1tZXRhbHMtd2ViLmpwZw.Wt4M3eqW4AY.jpg?w=948&h=533&format=webp&mode=pad&anchor=middlecenter&scale=both&bgcolor=F0F1F2)
Photo courtesy of Aqua Metals Inc.
Aqua Metals Inc., McCarran, Nevada, has announced the recovery of high-purity lithium hydroxide from lithium-ion battery (LIB) black mass at the company’s Li AquaRefining recycling facility located at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRIC), Nevada.
The company claims the production and availability of the first recycled lithium hydroxide at scale will help close the supply chain loop for critical battery metals in America and pave the way for a more sustainable and efficient battery manufacturing industry. It adds that the immediate recovery of lithium hydroxide also improves the economics of recycling advanced battery chemistries, such as lithium iron phosphate (LFP), where lithium makes up most of the valuable material, unlike current nickel and cobalt-based batteries.
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“We believe Li AquaRefining is now the only proven battery recycling technology that can produce lithium hydroxide at scale—avoiding the need for additional costly and polluting refinement,” Aqua Metals CEO and President Steve Cotton says. “We believe this new capability can have a profound impact on the lithium battery industry in North America."
He continues, “Our sustainably recycled lithium can help ensure a robust supply of critical metals to meet the Inflation Reduction Act’s ambitious goals for domestic content and enables us to share samples and advance our discussions with prospective partners in battery and cathode manufacturing.”
Aqua Metals’ Li AquaRefining pilot facility is a closed-loop recycling system the company says is able to recover all the critical resources contained in spent LIBs, primarily using electricity and without furnaces or intensive chemical processes typical of recycling. The company says it plans to produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide directly from black mass using its patent-pending, regenerative electro-hydrometallurgy process, made to suit manufacturer specifications.
The company says lithium hydroxide is often preferred over lithium carbonate or other lithium salts for cathode material in electric vehicles and energy storage systems due to its ease of use in manufacturing and superior electrochemical performance, powering safer batteries that are more efficient and last longer.
“Successfully scaling up our unique lithium hydroxide recovery process is a major technical milestone for the industry, heralding an era of low-emissions, circular supply of critical battery metals produced from domestic resources,” says Aqua Metals Chief Engineering and Operations Officer Ben Taecker. “Producing large quantities of recycled feedstock is new to battery manufacturing, and our ability to combine the recycling and refining of lithium into one process avoids unnecessary waste streams, lowers overall costs and improves supply chain efficiency for the rapidly growing lithium battery industry.”
The company’s Li AquaRefining pilot became operational in 2022 and is designed to recover lithium hydroxide and manganese dioxide, as well as pure cobalt, nickel and copper metals from spent LIBs, and provides the design basis for the company’s 10,000 ton-per-year lithium battery recycling campus planned for phased development starting later this year.
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