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in the beginning this year , BASF had todelay the openingof a battery materials plant in Finland when a court agreed with environmental groups that the company did n’t have a good plan to parcel out with its sewer water .
Asbattery factories spring up around the humans , the specter of wastewater peril to stall their building . One startup , though , says the solution is n’t to dispose of it , but rather to recycle it .
Wastewater from these plant go forth ladened with Na sulfate , a by - Cartesian product of sulfuric acid and sulphurous soda , two chemicals used in battery manufacturing , atomic number 29 purification and other industries .
“ We can totally create a circular economic system around these reagent chemicals , ” Bilen Akuzum , Centennial State - founder and CTO ofAepnus Technology , told TechCrunch .
Akuzum and co - founder Lukas Hackl did n’t set up out to create a small round economy ; rather they stumble upon it when touring lithium mining operations in California and Nevada . The pair of chemists , who have been friends since they met in their dorm ’s cafeteria , were researching possible startup ideas .
“ We were recollect about lithium extraction or something in the mineral space , ” Akuzum said . “ Every clip we spoke to somebody from the industry , they were like , ‘ Well , there are actually solutions for lithium extraction . But we have this waste mathematical product that ’s come out of our operations , and we really do n’t know what to do with it . ’ ”
After hark back from the trip , Akuzum and Hackl work the idea over in their heads , eventually deciding to refine an existing technology to turn that waste into raw material that the adeptness could use in their operations .
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The two founded Aepnus to modernise the 100 - old chloralkali summons , which splits salt like sodium sulfate back into the acids and nucleotide that make them .
The troupe practice electrolyzers to zap the saltiness , coaxing them into splitting . Other society do the same affair , but they might apply pricey metallic element to help belt along the reaction . “ We do n’t utilize any expensive catalysts in our electrolyzers , ” Akuzum said .
Aepnus is presently embark half - scale of measurement models of its equipment to customer , who can test the twist on their own wastewater streams . Each site ’s sewer water is likely to contain different contaminants , some of which need to be filtered beforehand . Once they ’re out , the electrolyzers can crop on removing the Na sulfate .
For client , fully recycling sodium sulphate waste should reduce disposal and material cost . And for those with removed sites , like miners , they ’re also lay aside on transportation . “ Rather than mining operations buy these chemical substance and nonplus them truck in from very long distances , we can regenerate those chemical substance on - site from the waste , ” Akuzum say .
The startup has over 15 customers at various stages , ranging from feasibility studies to test the airplane pilot - scale equipment . Aepnus recently raised an $ 8 million seed bout to ship more pilot program - scale electrolyzers and develop the commercial - scale version . The troll was led by Clean Energy Ventures with participation from Gravity Climate Fund , Impact Science Ventures , Lowercarbon Capital , Muus Climate Partners and Voyager Ventures .
If Aepnus can commercially produce its electrolyzers , it would brand a milepost for the U.S. “ There ’s only a fistful of troupe in the entire globe that have the expertise of build these type of electrolyzers , ” Akuzum say . “ Unfortunately , there ’s not a single company in the United States that has that know - how . ”