Earlier this yr, BASF needed to delay opening a battery supplies manufacturing unit in Finland after a courtroom agreed with environmental teams that the corporate didn’t have a superb wastewater therapy plan.
As battery factories pop up all over the world, the specter of wastewater might hinder their development. However one startup says the answer is not to throw it away however to recycle it.
Wastewater from these vegetation comprises sodium sulfate, a byproduct of sulfuric acid and caustic soda, two chemical substances utilized in battery manufacturing, copper refining and different industries.
“We are able to completely create a round financial system round these reagent chemical substances,” Aepnus Expertise co-founder and CTO Bilen Akuzum instructed TechCrunch.
Akuzum and co-founder Lukas Hackl did not got down to create a small round financial system, however stumbled upon it whereas visiting lithium mining operations in California and Nevada. The pair of chemists had been mates since they met in a dormitory cafeteria whereas engaged on doable entrepreneurial concepts.
“We’re lithium extraction or different issues within the minerals area,” Akuzum mentioned. “Each time we discuss to folks within the business, they are saying, ‘Nicely, there are literally options for lithium extraction. However we generate these wastes from our operations and we don’t actually know what to do with them.
After coming back from their journey, Akuzum and Hackel mulled over the concept and in the end determined to enhance current expertise to transform the waste into uncooked supplies that the ability might use in its operations.
The 2 based Aepnus to modernize the century-old chlor-alkali course of, which breaks down salts akin to sodium sulfate again into the acids and bases that produced them.
The corporate makes use of electrolysers to interrupt down salts, inflicting them to interrupt aside. Different firms do the identical factor, however they could use costly metals to assist pace up the response. “We do not use any costly catalysts in our electrolyzers,” Akuzum mentioned.
Aepnus is presently delivery half-scale fashions of its gear to clients, who can take a look at the gear on their very own wastewater streams. Wastewater from every web site could include totally different contaminants, a few of which require prior filtration. As soon as they exit, the electrolyzer can take away the sodium sulfate.
For purchasers, full recycling of sodium sulfate waste ought to cut back disposal and materials prices. For these with distant websites, akin to miners, they will additionally save on transportation prices. “As a substitute of mining operations shopping for these chemical substances and trucking them in from far-off, we are able to regenerate these chemical substances from waste on web site,” Akuzum mentioned.
The startup has greater than 15 clients in numerous phases from feasibility research to pilot plant testing. Aepnus just lately raised $8 million in seed funding to ship extra pilot-scale electrolysers and develop commercial-scale variations. The spherical was led by Clear Power Ventures, with participation from Gravity Local weather Fund, Influence Science Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Muus Local weather Companions and Voyager Ventures.
If Aepnus is ready to commercially produce its electrolyser, it might mark a milestone for the USA. “Sadly, no firm in the USA is aware of how to do that.”
