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Start-ups aim to change car battery recycling, clean up world's most polluting industry
(Reuters, 22 Apr 2021) Firms are finding innovative alternatives to hazardous smelting to remove lead from old batteries.
A handful of startups are trying to find a new way to recycle used car batteries, using water, chemicals and electricity to produce lead instead of the hazardous, high-heat smelting that has been identified as the world's most polluting industry.
One of the first to bring a new recycling technology to market is ACE Green Recycling Inc, which has developed a room-temperature process that turns lead from scrap batteries into briquettes of 99.5% purity and above, its Singapore-based CEO Nishchay Chadha told Reuters.
At its recycling plant in Ghaziabad, on the outskirts of the Indian capital New Delhi, the firm then uses electric kettles to refine the briquettes into ingots which are then sold to battery manufacturers. Plastic and other components are recycled separately.
Worldwide, the start-ups so far form only a tiny fraction of the lead battery recycling industry, which is estimated to be a $17.5 billion per year business, counting for just the lead value. But they claim the new technologies produce next to no emissions compared to traditional smelting.
Reuters, 22 Apr 2021: Start-ups aim to change car battery recycling, clean up world's most polluting industry
