Earlier this 12 months, BASF needed to delay the opening of a battery supplies plant in Finland when a courtroom agreed with environmental teams that the corporate didn’t have a superb plan to take care of its wastewater.
As battery factories spring up all over the world, 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 vegetation emerges laden with sodium sulfate, a byproduct of sulfuric acid and caustic soda, two chemical substances utilized in battery manufacturing, copper refining and different industries.
“We will completely create a round financial system round these reagent chemical substances,” Bilen Akuzum, co-founder and CTO of Aepnus Expertise, instructed TechCrunch.
Akuzum and co-founder Lukas Hackl didn’t got down to create a small round financial system, as a substitute stumbling upon it when touring lithium mining operations in California and Nevada. The pair of chemists, who’ve been mates since they met of their dorm’s cafeteria, have been researching attainable startup concepts.
“We have been enthusiastic about lithium extraction or one thing within the minerals house,” Akuzum mentioned. “Each time we spoke to any individual from the business, they have been like, ‘Nicely, there are literally options for lithium extraction. However now we have 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, finally deciding to refine an current expertise to show that waste into uncooked supplies that the amenities might 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 expensive metals to assist pace the reactions. “We don’t use any costly catalysts in our electrolyzers,” Akuzum mentioned.
Aepnus is presently delivery half-scale fashions of its gear to prospects, who can check the units on their very own wastewater streams. Every website’s wastewater is more likely to include totally different contaminants, a few of which should 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 cut back disposal and materials prices. And for these with distant websites, like miners, they’re additionally saving on transportation. “Quite than mining operations buying these chemical substances and getting them trucked in from very lengthy distances, we are able to regenerate these chemical substances onsite from the waste,” Akuzum mentioned.
The startup has over 15 prospects at numerous phases starting from feasibility research to testing the pilot-scale gear. 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 Vitality Ventures with participation from Gravity Local weather Fund, Influence Science Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Muus Local weather Companions and Voyager Ventures.
If Aepnus can commercially produce its electrolyzers, it might mark a milestone for the U.S. “There’s solely a handful of corporations in your entire world which have the experience of constructing a lot of these electrolyzers,” Akuzum mentioned. “Sadly, there’s not a single firm in the US that has that know the way.”
