Public Funding for Watercycle Technologies Limited

Our project seeks to leverage our selective adsorption membrane technology to capture rare earth elements from UK water sources. The UK is currently 100% reliant on imported rare earths, and yet they are essential ingredients of advanced low carbon technologies like advanced alloys, electric motors and wind turbines. This puts the UK's Net Zero plans at risk. Luckily, the UK has naturally occuring sources of rare earth elements but existing technologies are not suitable for cost-effectively recovering them. In this project we are aiming to demonstrate, at pilot scale, the selective extraction and refinement of rare earth metals from UK sources. If successful, this could ultimately enable the UK to become a net-exporter of these critical elements, helping to supercharge the UK economy.

REVITALISE delivers a holistic solution for green, low-cost, and low environmental impact recycling of NMC (Hi-Ni), LFP and NaIon batteries, representing 85% of battery waste streams up to 2025. REVITALISE develops low-cost and green processes to recover a full range of battery materials, including NMC, LFP, Al, Cu, Li, graphite, fluorides, phosphates and plastics. Overall recycling rates of 91%+ will be proven at TRL4 for waste processed from post-production scrap and end-of-life battery black mass. REVITALISE will develop innovative pre-treatment technologies based on electrohydraulic fragmentation, ultrasonication and magnetic, and electrostatic separation that will achieve very high levels of material stream purity. This will enable commercially viable recycling of low-value parts. The approach will enable direct recycling of 40% of the cathode and anode active parts, with direct characterisation of the lithiation (or sodiation) being developed that will be used as a basis of a smart-reformation approach for reclaimed active materials. The remaining 60% being suitable for hydrometallurgical recycling based on leaching with green organic acids from food waste, such as vitamin C (ascorbates), vinegar (acetate) and citric acid (citrates) and inorganic acids produced from industrial wastes. A further innovation is the development of water remediation with Li recovery from all wastewater streams generated, through the implementation of polymeric nanocomposite membrane separation with direct Li recycling for Li in water concentrations down to 0.6mg/L. The recycled parts will be assessed for (closed-loop) battery and other secondary applications for precursors and semi-products by industrial partners Verkor and Hydro, through reformulation and upcycling of battery materials and validation of remanufactured batteries. An optimised process flow will be determined to achieve commercially viable recycling with maximised recovery rates and minimal environmental impact.

Despite being a cornerstone of the UK's industrial and energy-transition strategy, the UK automotive **Lithium-Ion Battery** **(LIB)** production industry faces two existential threats: * **LIBs require vast amounts of critical raw materials, especially the Cathode Active Materials (CAMs) cobalt, nickel and lithium** (175kt needed by 2035). CAMs are all sourced from overseas, creating critical security of supply issues. * OEMs and LIB manufacturers who are responsible for end-of-life (EoL) batteries **lack LIB recycling infrastructure**. Consequently, there is a **growing mountain of automotive LIB waste** (~6.6Mt by 2030) that must be exported, resulting in loss of value to the UK (CAMs worth £1.2bn by 2030). Automotive LIBs can be reused or recycled to deal responsibly with battery-waste and provide a source of battery-grade materials. However, commercial, SotA recycling processes are inefficient and costly, do not produce raw materials of sufficient quality for reuse in automotive batteries, and are only available overseas. Currently, UK battery manufacturers and collectors are: * Losing the value of the CAMs (~£1.2bn by 2030); * Paying European/Asian companies to dispose of batteries; * Increasing reliance on insecure primary material extraction and processing supply lines. REBLEND aims to develop the core processes and capabilities for a UK-based automotive battery recycling industry that can recover CAMs from production scrap and EoL automotive and consumer batteries for reuse in automotive batteries. REBLEND will demonstrate three processes for recovering the most expensive CAMs, cobalt, nickel and lithium through: 1. Combining novel delamination, magnetic, electrostatic and membrane separation techniques to produce separated and \>89% pure anodic and \>94% pure cathodic black mass from shredded EoL LIBs (compared to <89% pure mixed black mass from best-in-class competitor) enabling battery-grade CAM recovery for £6/kg. 2. Direct cathode reclamation from production scrap (containing nickel & cobalt) removing the need for hydro-metallurgy and enabling direct reuse in new cells. 3. Processing coarse shredded material (2-6mm) using electrostatic and magnetic separation, preventing carcinogenic dust formation, significantly reducing H&S risks for workers. Key areas of innovation in the project are: * Optimisation of LIB shredding parameters to reduce undesirable reactions that limit recovery of materials. * Use of world-leading polymeric nanocomposite membrane technology to achieve zero process waste and extract lithium. * Optimisation of innovative electrostatic and magnetic separation techniques and (for the first time) delamination of electrode and current-collector to enable cost-effective recovery of high-purity CAM recyclates at pilot-scale (10kg batches). * Direct recycling techniques for cathode reclamation.

The creation of a carbon-neutral domestic supply of lithium in the South West region could become central to the post-fossil fuel economy of the UK. Returning primary production to the once lucrative tin mines of Cornwall is an exciting prospect that could bring thousands of high-quality green jobs to the region, bolstering the local economy and underpinning the UK's supply chain of widespread and affordable electric vehicles for all. However, it must be done in a truly environmentally responsible way - preserving local water quality and availability, utilising non fossil-fuel energy to power the process and eliminating the production of harmful waste products. At Watercycle Technologies, we believe we are well on the way to achieving this aim, using our advanced membrane distillation-crystallisation (MDC) technology to directly extract lithium from geothermal brines, using the renewable energy already embedded within them to power the process. We have already demonstrated our ability to produce lithium carbonate (the raw material that goes into batteries) from Cornish brines using our system, making us the first company to do so. And we hope that this project will enable us to accelerate our development and, by the end of it, construct the world's first carbon-neutral lithium extraction demonstration system right here in the UK.