Aqua Metals Nevada battery recycling plant secures $10 million loan

By Paul Ploumis (ScrapMonster Author)

November 16, 2015 07:46:40 AM

SAN DIEGO (Scrap Monster): Oakland, California-based Aqua Metals Inc. has announced that it has received $10 million in loan from Green Bank in conjunction with a 90% loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development. The loan will be used to enhance the lead recycling capacity at its lead acid battery recycling facility in McCarran, Nevada, which is currently under construction.

The new $29.6 million AquaRefinery battery recycling plant will be spread over 125,000 square-feet building. The first production from the plant is expected by around second quarter of next year. The plant is expected to produce lead at 80 metric tons per day initially and is expected to double its production to 160 metric tons per day by 2018, thereby creating additional rural jobs in the region.

The plant employs patented AquaRefining technology which ensures higher product yield and better product at minimized operation cost. The new technology is expected to eliminate toxic waste and reduce permitting when compared with the traditionally employed smelting technique. According to the company, the proprietary AquaRefining technology reduces production cost significantly when compared with conventional smelting procedures. It uses electro-chemical process to produce lead from recovered batteries, mostly from automobiles.

Aqua Metals had purchased 11.7 acres of land for building the new facility at Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) in McCarran, Nevada in June this year. The ground-breaking ceremony of the facility was held during end-August this year. The Nevada recycling facility is the world’s first commercial AquaRefinery.