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A Company That Wants To Make Lead Green

This article is more than 7 years old.

Steve Cotton, the CCO of Aqua Metals, believes he can make the world a more sustainable, green place through lead.

Yes, Lead. The metal Roman aristocracy literally went crazy over. The stuff that was removed from transportation fuels in the 1980s and the element at the root of the Flint, Michigan water scandal.

Lead, however, also remains the primary metal for making batteries. 96% of the batteries produced worldwide are based around lead, he notes. Lead acid batteries are found in the UPSes inside data centers. Virtually every car in the world sports lead acid batteries. The lead acid batteries inside electric cars for running peripherals and the cooling system for the primary lithium ion battery pack are in fact typically larger than the lead acid batteries found in conventional cars. Johnson Controls at its analyst day in June estimated that lead acid would still account for 94% of units shipped into automotive by 2030, thanks in part to the growing popularity of stop-start technologies.

Lead acid batteries also cost far less than lithium ion batteries, making them a potentially attractive option for microgrids and energy storage systems in emerging markets.

“Global lead demand is going up,” Cotton said and could grow 40% in the next 20 years.

Aqua Metals doesn’t make lead any less toxic. Instead, the company has developed a process that effectively allows lead to be recycled at essentially room temperature, reducing the cost and energy required to make new batteries. The need for new mines declines. Costs go down and, ideally, the amount of leftover lead in discarded electronics begins to erode.

A Metallic Electric Massage

While a large portion of the world’s lead today gets recycled, it’s a dirty process. Lead-bearing materials get heated to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit while being mixed with other agents. Exide Technologies, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2013, is mired in a multimillion dollar battle over the hazards at a traditional lead acid recycling facility in the Los Angeles area.

“Attila the Hun would recognize it (the smelting process),” Cotton said.

Aqua Metals relies on a secret catalyst and what you could call an electric massage. Lead is placed into an aqueous solution with the catalyst at conventional temperatures. The tank is then zapped with electricity. It’s not enough to tightly electroplate the lead to another surface. Instead, it’s lightly plated. The end result is that lead molecules are released from their old bonds, but only loosely bound to a new material, making it easier to harvest.

“We build lead at the molecular level,” he explained. Performing the process in water also eliminates the dust hazard.

The system is self-contained and can run 7/24 without much human supervision. A single module can recycle 2.5 tons of lead per day. The company’s inaugural factory in Reno contains 16 modules. It opens later this month and will be fully operational by the end of the year. With Tesla, Faraday Future and others in the area, you could call Reno the Biggest Little Battery City in the World.

Cotton adds that the units are modular. Aqua Metals will produce lead in joint partnerships—Interstate Batteries recently invested $10 million into the company—as well as sell its technology in various ways (licensing, franchising etc.) to third parties so they can recycle on their own. (Modular manufacturing and deployment are, in my mind, one of the fundamental reasons renewable technologies are edging out traditional industries. Check out the time lapse photography for building the Reno site.)

Lead vs. Lithium

How does it compare to lithium? Lithium is recyclable, but right now few people engage in it because of the economics. Lithium, for all of the articles that claim we might be at some sort of peak, is actually fairly prevalent—it occupies the third spot on the Periodic Table of the Elements—and remains reasonably priced.

Lithium also occupies a very small portion of the volume of lithium ion batteries. Only around 2-3% of lithium ion batteries is lithium. While these batteries also contain cobalt and other valuable materials, a good portion of the electrolyte can consist of fluorine, which currently doesn’t get recycled.

Lead makes up 55% of a lead acid battery. The rest consists of plastic, metal and acid, all recyclable.

“We are the only battery technology that is 100% recyclable,” Cotton claims.

The Challenge

While the idea looks good on paper, turning Aqua Metals into a mainstream industrial player will be a daunting task. Manufacturers move slowly when it comes to adopting new processes and Aqua Metal’s technology involves investing in new capital in an industry already grappling with low commodity prices. Performance testing could take years.

The company is public. It went out in June 2015 at $5 a share. The stock now rides above $12. But it’s a concept play for the moment. Remember Molycorp? The company that mines for Rare Earth Elements in the U.S.? It went from $13 to $75 to 36 cents and Chapter 11.

The lithium industry is also moving fast to reduce the cost of its technologies. Demand for lithium batteries is robust thanks to smart phones and other electronics: when it comes to performance and weight, lead simply can’t compete in markets like this. Lithium also appears to be winning the battle in grid scale storage. The majority of new storage projects involve some form of lithium ion batteries like those from LG Chem or Tesla.

Technologies for improving lithium’s recyclability are inevitable.

Still, this is a massive market. If Aqua Metals can scale its footprint, the future for lead could become shinier.