Urban Mining Startup Metastable Materials Inaugurates its R&D and Innovation Centre in Bengaluru
Bengaluru : Urban mining startup Metastable Materials has inaugurated its maiden R&D and Innovation Centre in Bengaluru, with the multi-fold goals of carrying out equipment fabrication, design and development, and process optimization, among other strategic areas for the company. Metastable’s newly-inaugurated facility, spread over a total area of 5,000 sq. ft., is equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure and equipment, including an in-house quality analysis lab to perform regular quality checks of the end-products (extracted materials) alongwith a parallel focus on continuous improvements in terms of process efficiency and yield.
By the end of the current fiscal, i.e. FY 2022-23, Metastable aims to ramp-up the facility to run at its full capacity and bolster commercialization optimally for the company. This will also include them working towards doubling-up the facility to function as a metal extraction line by the end of 2022 – with the capacity to be able to handle the processing of up to 600 tons of end-of-life Lithium-ion batteries per year and eventually cater to 4 to 6% of India’s end-of-life Li-ion batteries treatment value chain.
The newly-opened facility shall facilitate continuous improvement opportunities for Metastable’s process engineering team to carry out regular experiments targeted towards increasing efficiency, yield and purity of the various output materials obtained through Metastable’s patented technology. Notably, Metastable Materials has innovated a first-of-its-kind, chemical-free technology that in an eco-friendly manner can extract a wide range of valuable materials like Copper, Aluminium, Cobalt, Nickel and Lithium from Lithium-ion batteries. Metastable’s patented technology can provide upto 90% recovery of constituent materials for LiBs across various types of cell chemistries.
“We at Metastable Materials are delighted and proud to launch our maiden R&D Centre, which will also be serving as our first metal extraction line by the last quarter of 2022. Given that majority of the metals extracted by us from Li-ion batteries have an overall trade deficit and are currently facing a supply crunch in the domestic market and are being imported from other countries at higher prices, we foresee a huge opportunity for unfulfilled demand to be tapped into by offering these commodities at a lower price than the market. And our newly-inaugurated facility will be playing a pivotal role in enabling that and in giving impetus to circular economy. Once technology validation is proven at scale at this facility, Metastable Materials plans to develop India’s urban mining infrastructure based on its new and improved processes over the next two years or so” Shubham Vishvakarma, Founder & Head of Process Engineering, Metastable Materials said.