Hong Kong startup targets lithium battery waste with AI-powered recycling system
Lithium battery waste is piling up, and a Hong Kong-based startup is showing the world how to clean it up smartly.
Achelous Pure Metals has developed a portable, eco-friendly recycling system designed to process used lithium-ion batteries right in urban centers, according to a report on SCMP.
The five-year-old company has built a robot-assisted pilot line that can sort, shred, and filter materials from non-electric vehicle (EV) batteries.
The process includes vacuum and heat treatment to safely extract hazardous substances like epoxy adhesives and fluorine gases.
Another pilot system, which uses nanoparticle-based separation, helps isolate and refine critical metals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel from the so-called 'black mass'—a powdery residue left after crushing batteries.
The firm's goal is to bring scalable and movable recycling to cities, starting with Hong Kong and eventually expanding across Southeast Asia.
'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,' Alan Wong Yuk-chun, co-founder and technical director of the startup told SCMP.
While the startup has deployed its technology at a client facility in Jiangsu province that can process up to 10,000 tonnes of battery waste annually, it's facing hurd+6les. A surge in China's recycling capacity has led to a scramble for black mass, while the prices of end products have been falling rapidly.
'Our client's factory has to compete for black mass at higher and higher prices, while the prices of end-products like lithium carbonate keep falling amid oversupply,' said Shawn Cheng, the company's co-founder and R&D director.
Battery-grade lithium carbonate, once dubbed 'white gold,' dropped nearly 90 percent in price—from 568,000 yuan in November 2022 to just 60,600 yuan per tonne in May 2024, according to Daiwa Capital Markets. Global lithium oversupply is expected to peak by 2027 before swinging into a deficit early next decade, forecasts UK-based consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
In response, the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park-based startup is pivoting. It's building out its Hong Kong operation and helping companies across Southeast Asia establish 'micro-factories' that can turn discarded batteries into black mass for export to China.
The company is also in talks with local firms to recycle lithium batteries from security transceivers, and exploring opportunities in Malaysia and Singapore for e-waste recovery.
'We want to help [our] partners meet their future recycled content obligations and set up a system to keep track of the materials' footprint for compliance,' Cheng said.
The world is staring at a mounting e-waste crisis. In 2022 alone, about 62 million tonnes of electronic waste were generated globally—enough to circle the planet in bumper-to-bumper tractor-trailers, according to a 2024 UN report.
That figure is projected to hit 82 million tonnes by 2030, with metals such as copper, gold, and iron making up nearly half the total, valued at an estimated $91 billion.
Yet just 22 percent of this waste was properly collected and recycled in 2022, and that figure is expected to drop even further by the decade's end.
The UN attributes this to ballooning consumption, limited repair options, shorter product lifespans, and inadequate recycling infrastructure.
In response, governments are tightening the screws. New EU regulations mandate lithium recovery rates of 50 percent by 2027 and 80 percent by 2031, with recovery targets for metals like cobalt, copper, and nickel climbing as high as 95 percent.
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