Metastable Materials Commissions Chemical Free Recycling Unit for Lithium Batteries

Metastable Materials, a Bengaluru-based company, has announced the commissioning of an urban mining operation outside of Bengaluru, Karnataka, to scale up its current capabilities in the battery (Chemical Free Recycling) recycling/urban mining space and thereby fuel the startup’s strategic business expansion.

To support and manage the “waste-as-ore” concept-based recycling of hazardous end-of-life batteries and products, the unit is equipped with quality control and material handling capabilities.

A chemical-free integrated carbothermal reduction (ICR) technique will be used at Metastable’s new facility, which is 21,000 square feet in size, to recover valuable minerals from lithium-ion batteries.

An internal quality control lab at the facility is set up with the capacity to continuously ensure the quality of output materials. To enable significant advancements in yield, purity, and overall process efficiency, the unit will soon double down as an on-site R&D center.

For the new unit to process 5 tonnes of raw materials (via urban mining) per day at its maximum capacity during the upcoming few quarters, Metastable Materials is now aggressively looking to ramp up the production capabilities of the unit.

The new recycling facility from Metastable, with a capacity of up to 1500 tonnes per year, is intended to produce zero effluents and eliminate the fire concerns typically connected with recycling lithium-ion batteries.

The long-term goal of Metastable is to bridge the gap between the supply and demand of rare metals like cobalt, nickel, and lithium rather than only focusing on closing the recycling cycle.

With the extraction of metals from dead LiBs based on its flagship ICR process, which was developed in India, Metastable is attempting to integrate them into the current industrial supply chains and offer a sustainable alternative to newly mined metals. The extracted metals are just as good as new ones and can be used to create anything from wires to drugs to jet engines, as well as new batteries of course.

The process used by Metastable automatically lowers capital requirements and offers efficiency that is on par with industry standards with the fewest inputs needed.

Several significant market participants have already expressed interest in purchasing the materials extracted from end-of-life batteries as well as providing Metastable Materials with end-of-life batteries for processing, the startup claims (Chemical Free Recycling).