BMW i Ventures introduced a lead funding within the Collection A-1 financing spherical of Vancouver-based Mangrove Lithium. The corporate has developed a modular platform producing battery-grade lithium hydroxide and carbonate from various enter streams and property to enhance the sustainability profile of lithium. BMW i Ventures is joined by current investor Breakthrough Vitality Ventures.
Mangrove’s patent-pending, proprietary know-how makes use of electrochemical processes to transform lithium chloride and lithium sulfate immediately into lithium hydroxide. The know-how additionally produces fungible byproducts, boosting funding price of return and solidifying undertaking bankability. These byproducts, HCl and H2SO4 within the situations of lithium chloride and lithium sulfate, respectively, can be utilized on the extraction stage within the means of buying lithium to enhance sustainability with a closed-loop extraction course of.
Mangrove Lithium’s electrochemical course of eliminates the necessity for a carbonate plant, lowering the working prices and time related to first changing feedstock into lithium carbonate. That is important to the way forward for electrical automobiles, as a sustainable and scalable manufacturing of lithium is required to fulfill the rising battery demand.
Mangrove’s modular answer could be scaled to any capability, at level of extraction or level of producing or recycling, and co-located with upstream lithium producers or cathode and cell producers. This permits a extra diversified allocation of refining capacities worldwide.
The platform know-how can be being commercialized for the conversion of waste brines to chemical substances and desalinated water.
Mangrove’s know-how is the lowest-energy answer in the marketplace, so it’s not solely the least costly answer, but in addition the greenest. Websites with renewable power sources may almost eradicate their carbon footprint, in addition to a lot of the dangerous reagents utilized in at this time’s lithium refining.
We’re seeing an rising want for these kinds of applied sciences as lithium demand will increase, and accessibility to inexperienced options stays restricted at this time. Mangrove’s core know-how affords the chance to essentially enhance the provision chain of lithium manufacturing unlocking new lithium provide in a extra environmentally-friendly method.
—Kasper Sage, Managing Associate at BMW i Ventures
Mangrove’s know-how facilitates a resilient provide chain with its cellular crops, capacity to course of each chloride and sulfate feedstocks, and output battery-grade lithium hydroxide or carbonate. This differentiates from different applied sciences attributable to its capacity to provide high-purity lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate from a range of feedstocks at low power consumption and excessive restoration charges.
The brand new funding can be used to additional speed up the launch of Mangrove’s first business plant.
