Earlier this yr, BASF needed to delay the opening of a battery supplies plant in Finland when a court docket agreed with environmental teams that the corporate didn’t have plan to cope with its wastewater.
As battery factories spring up around the globe, the specter of wastewater threatens to stall their building. One startup, although, says the answer isn’t to get rid of it, however recycle it.
Wastewater from these crops emerges laden with sodium sulfate, a byproduct of sulfuric acid and caustic soda, two chemical compounds utilized in battery manufacturing, copper refining and different industries.
“We will completely create a round economic system round these reagent chemical compounds,” Bilen Akuzum, co-founder and CTO of Aepnus Expertise, advised gajed.
Akuzum and co-founder Lukas Hackl didn’t got down to create a small round economic system, as a substitute stumbling upon it when touring lithium mining operations in California and Nevada. The pair of chemists, who’ve been buddies since they met of their dorm’s cafeteria, had been researching attainable startup concepts.
“We had been excited about lithium extraction or one thing within the minerals house,” Akuzum mentioned. “Each time we spoke to any person from the business, they had been like, ‘Effectively, there are literally options for lithium extraction. However we have now this waste product that’s popping out of our operations, and we actually don’t know what to do with it.’”
After getting back from the journey, Akuzum and Hackl turned the thought over of their heads, ultimately deciding to refine an current expertise to show that waste into uncooked supplies that the amenities may use of their operations.
The 2 based Aepnus to modernize the century-old chloralkali course of, which splits salts like sodium sulfate again into the acids and bases that created them.
The corporate makes use of electrolyzers to zap the salts, coaxing them into splitting. Different corporations do the identical factor, however they may use dear metals to assist velocity the reactions. “We don’t use any costly catalysts in our electrolyzers,” Akuzum mentioned.
Aepnus is at present delivery half-scale fashions of its tools to clients, who can take a look at the gadgets on their very own wastewater streams. Every web site’s wastewater is prone to comprise totally different contaminants, a few of which must be filtered beforehand. As soon as they’re out, the electrolyzers can work on eradicating the sodium sulfate.
For purchasers, totally recycling sodium sulfate waste ought to scale back disposal and materials prices. And for these with distant websites, like miners, they’re additionally saving on transportation. “Somewhat than mining operations buying these chemical compounds and getting them trucked in from very lengthy distances, we are able to regenerate these chemical compounds onsite from the waste,” Akuzum mentioned.
The startup has over 15 clients at varied levels starting from feasibility research to testing the pilot-scale tools. Aepnus not too long ago raised an $8 million seed spherical to ship extra pilot-scale electrolyzers and develop the commercial-scale model. The spherical was led by Clear Power Ventures with participation from Gravity Local weather Fund, Impression Science Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Muus Local weather Companions and Voyager Ventures.
If Aepnus can commercially produce its electrolyzers, it could mark a milestone for the U.S. “There’s solely a handful of corporations in the complete world which have the experience of constructing a lot of these electrolyzers,” Akuzum mentioned. “Sadly, there’s not a single firm in the USA that has that understand how.”