Hong Kong start-up's unique strategy to tackle lithium battery recycling at home, overseas

A Hong Kong lithium battery recycling start-up is eyeing opportunities at home and in Southeast Asia amid overcapacity and intense competition for recyclable materials in mainland China.
Hong Kong Science and Technology Park-based Achelous Pure Metals currently has a capacity to process 150 tonnes of used non-electric vehicle (EV) batteries a year. It has set up its operations in an industrial building in Tuen Mun in the New Territories, which is pending approval from the Environmental Protection Department.
The company crushes the batteries into a so-called black mass – a powdery mixture of valuable metals like lithium, cobalt, copper, manganese and nickel – which is then refined into lithium carbonate, cobalt and nickel compounds.
'Our goal is to tackle the growing problem of discarded lithium-ion batteries by bringing scalable, movable, eco-friendly recycling to urban centres starting in Hong Kong, with plans to expand to [Southeast] Asia,' said Alan Wong Yuk-chun, the co-founder and technical director.
Achelous Pure Metal founder and technical director Alan Wong at a joint venture recycling plant in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Photo: Handout
He said that as the city lacked
recycling facilities , small-scale recycling of non-EV batteries could be done in Hong Kong and showcased for overseas business development. Most spent EV batteries were collected and exported, he added.
Between two and three tonnes of lithium batteries a day were collected from discarded electrical appliances and power banks in Hong Kong, he said.

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