Battery recycling firm Nth Cycle has secured $3.2 million in funding to push its electro-extraction technology.
The funding was led by climate tech venture capital firm Clean Energy Ventures and will be used to execute the Boston, US, firm’s technology roadmap and deploy pilot projects with recyclers and mine operators early next year.
Massachusetts-based Nth Cycle’s technology recovers cobalt and other critical metals from batteries, e-waste, low-grade ore, and mine tailings minerals using only electricity and carbon filters.
Nth Cycle says its electro-extraction is an alternative to the conventional pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy processes used by battery recyclers to recover cobalt, nickel and manganese.
Daniel Goldman, managing director at Clean Energy Ventures, said that as demand for batteries increases so will the need for a sustainable process for creating a US supply chain for electric vehicles and energy storage.
The firm’s technology was developed at US institutes Harvard University and Yale University.
Daniel Miller, innovation crossroads program lead at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said: “Separating critical minerals from other metals in the recycling and mining process can be costly and complex. A technology like Nth Cycle’s reduces the cost, footprint, and environmental impact of producing recycled metals that have exactly the same composition and performance as newly mined minerals.”
Megan O’Connor, CEO and founder of Nth Cycle, said: “A significant fraction of the critical minerals needed for the transition to electric vehicles are already in circulation today, we just haven’t had a clean, profitable way of retrieving them, until now.
“Through electro-extraction, we’re turning waste into valuable resources and we look forward to bringing this technology to battery recyclers and miners so we can all move together on a path toward a more sustainable planet.”
