AQMS News & Events

Aqua Metals announced it has advanced to final site-specific diligence and negotiations for Headwaters ARC, the company's planned commercial battery recycling and critical minerals recovery campus in the Midwest battery manufacturing corridor. Headwaters ARC is designed as a significantly larger and more expandable platform than the company's previously announced Sierra ARC project. Aqua Metals has advanced to final site-specific diligence on a Midwest development opportunity that includes an existing industrial facility of approximately 150,000 square feet and approximately 50 or more acres of land, providing more than seven times the existing building footprint and more than 10 times the land area of the previously planned Sierra ARC. The company continues to evaluate development sequencing, financing structures, and implementation pathways intended to support the most efficient path to commercial deployment. The company expects to announce its selected development path during the current quarter, subject to completion of diligence, negotiations, financing, and customary approvals. The planned campus is expected to begin with rapid deployment of commercially proven battery preprocessing systems to produce high-specification black mass, aluminum fines, and copper fines with an initial strategic focus on lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, materials. Aqua Metals then intends to progressively integrate its proprietary AquaRefining(TM) technology to recover battery-grade lithium carbonate and iron phosphate from the black mass produced, creating a phased development pathway from preprocessing and materials production into higher-value domestic critical minerals recovery.

Aqua Metals announced that it has been selected as the industrial partner on a U.S. Department of Energy, or DOE-funded research program led by Idaho National Laboratory, or INL, focused on advancing next-generation battery recycling technologies. The project will evaluate electrochemically driven alternatives to conventional solvent extraction for the separation of nickel and cobalt from lithium-ion battery recycling streams, supporting the development of more efficient and economically competitive domestic critical minerals refining technologies.

Lion Energy announced a strategic partnership with American Battery Factory, a U.S.-based manufacturer of lithium iron phosphate battery cells, developing one of the first networks of domestic giga-scale battery cell manufacturing facilities. The partnership further reinforces Lion Energy's position as a key enabler of the emerging U.S. battery supply chain and is strategically aligned with ABF's recently announced offtake agreements for its planned lithium iron phosphate battery cell gigafactory in Tucson, Arizona. This alignment takes on additional significance with Aqua Metals' recently announced acquisition of Lion Energy

Aqua Metals announced that it has entered into a term sheet to acquire Lion Energy. Following the closing of the transaction, Aqua Metals plans to leverage Lion Energy's solutions, brand, intellectual property, capital, technical talent and manufacturing capabilities to transform Aqua Metals into a domestic power player capable of managing the entire battery lifecycle, from manufacturing and deployment to intelligent grid participation and end-of-life recovery.