Aqua Metals confirms battery lead recycling plans

United States – Aqua Metals, Inc. of California in the USA, the developer of an electrochemical lead recycling technology, has announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 6.6 million shares of common stock at US$ 5 per share. The shares began trading on the NASDAQ Capital Market on July 31.

Aqua Metals, Inc. has developed AquaRefining, a modular electrochemical process that produces ultra-pure lead from used lead-acid batteries ‘in an efficient and socially responsible manner’. Unlike lead smelting, the company explains, ‘AquaRefining produces almost no emissions’ and, by comparison, ‘consumes significantly less energy and is more cost effective’.

Aqua Metals, which has engineering offices at Oakland in California, plans to build multiple commercial AquaRefineries – the first of which will be near Reno in Nevada. In March this year, the company confirmed that it had entered into a contract to purchase 12.5 acres of land in Nevada’s Tahoe Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) and that it planned to have the AquaRefinery fully operational by the first quarter of 2016. 

‘When completed,’ it said, ‘the AquaRefinery will be the world’s first large-scale lead recycling facility that does not require a traditional smelter to reprocess lead batteries.’

Dr Stephen Clarke, chairman and ceo of Aqua Metals, noted: ‘Our AquaRefinery is intended to produce lead with a much higher purity than can be achieved with conventional recycling. High purity lead is becoming scarce and is essential for the production of more advanced lead-acid batteries.’