Canadian new energy startup XProEM plans to land in the Chinese market

 New energy vehicles are becoming the new darling of the capital market. Since the beginning of this year, Tesla’s share price has soared by 400%, while several leading local electric vehicle manufacturers: Weilai rose nearly 10 times, ideal rose 1.5 times, and Xiaopeng Motors’ recent valuation Also unstoppable. The rapid development of the new energy tram industry has also begun to allow more and more overseas companies to focus on the Chinese market.

XProEM, a Canadian lithium battery recycling technology startup company, was established in 2018 and mainly develops electric vehicle power battery recycling technology. In 2019, XProEM received an angel round of investment, and has now completed the verification and development of a complete set of technical processes, economic calculations, and a pilot project construction plan and submitted a patent application.

The company's next phase will focus on the construction of the pilot test center and pilot base to complete small-scale trial production. Haichuangpai learned that they are looking for partners in domestic industrial parks. According to reports, the advantage of XProEM is that it combines V3M physics and 3SM chemistry with a "gradual reduction" separation process through an efficient closed-loop solution. The whole process does not use any acid, alkali and organic solvents, and solves the national new problem from both environmental protection and economic benefits. The industry's pain point in the recycling of power batteries for energy electric vehicles.

 “In the past few years, lithium battery recycling was limited by technology, and the economic benefits were low, and the retrospective system was not perfect. As a result, the actual battery recycling volume was much lower than the total scrap volume. Society is a huge delayed storage package,” said Liu Xintong, CEO of XProEM. With the national promulgation of relevant policies, the gradual establishment of a standardized retrospective system, a responsibility division system and a battery logistics system, the on-board lithium batteries manufactured around 2018 and the earlier accumulated'social storage capacity' are expected to be released in large quantities around 2023. At that time, the global There are 800 to 1 million tons to be processed, and it will reach 1.2 to 1.5 million tons in 2025." According to various data, the world's most concentrated demand for lithium battery recycling for power vehicles comes from China, especially the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta and southern regions.

Kinnor Chattopadhyay, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of XProEM, is the head of the Metal Materials Process Laboratory of the University of Toronto. The group's cooperative technology research and development has won many scientific research academic awards such as the Outstanding Young Scholar of the Canadian Ministry of Industry and Innovation. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Liu Xintong has experience in the development and investment and financing management of domestic and foreign metal mining projects, and understands the global natural resource market and business operations. Other members of the team also include senior engineering designers in the field of mining and metals.

The main drawbacks of the traditional mainstream lithium battery recycling process are mainly reflected in the high operating costs, lower operating profits and investment returns, and the hidden dangers of environmental pollution from toxic substances.

Haichuangpai learned that XProEM's solid-state reaction technology does not use any acid-base solvents throughout the process, and does not require solvent regeneration and hazardous wastewater treatment. From the perspective of economic benefits, XProEM has greatly reduced the average operating cost in terms of material consumption, equipment production line construction costs and unit energy costs, and greatly improved the net profit margin of the operation. From the perspective of environmental protection, compared with the traditional physical separation process, XProEM's V3E physical separation technology uses a unique steam metallurgical distillation process to process and recover a variety of fluorides, avoiding the discharge of toxic fluorine-containing waste gas and causing air pollution. In contrast to the chemical wet process and the fire melting process, XProEM’s 3SM chemical separation technology uses the targeted step-by-step conversion of different elements of the metal and separates them in a “decreasing” manner in a solid environment, fundamentally avoiding toxic metal water pollution and The potential hazards of air pollution and related treatment costs.

According to the 2019 report of the China Business Industry Research Institute, the market scale created by the recovery of metals such as cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium, iron and aluminum from waste lithium batteries in China is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan this year and reach 250 yuan in 2023. 100 million yuan. The recovery and recycling of used power batteries will become one of the important strategies and key links of the new energy automobile industry chain .

The "Key Points of Industrial Energy Conservation and Comprehensive Utilization in 2020" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology this year emphasizes the promotion of the construction of a new energy vehicle power battery recycling system from three aspects: recycling, echelon utilization and traceability supervision. It is understood that the most valuable part of the lithium battery recycling product is the positive electrode powder. The high economic value rare metal elements such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, etc., separated and purified by XProEM's new separation technology can be used as raw materials to enter the lithium battery manufacturing again, effectively Relieve the pressure on the upstream raw material supply side from the blowout development of lithium battery production; or become the raw material for the production and processing of other high-end manufacturing industries (such as aerospace, medical instruments). At present, XProEM's target customers mainly come from three links in the supply chain: lithium battery manufacturers, lithium battery car manufacturers, and scrap enterprise recycling and dismantling companies.

The "China's Decommissioned Power Battery Recycling Technology and Industry Development Report" shows that the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Central Region and other regions have gradually begun to build a recycling system, of which 45 new energy vehicle manufacturers are located in 31 provinces across the country. The (city) has established more than 3,000 recycling service outlets.

Speaking of the replacement of the next-generation lithium battery components, such as the impact of a new generation of low-cobalt technology and lithium-air lithium-sulfur batteries on the industry, XProEM CEO Liu Xintong responded: "It is estimated that the next-generation lithium battery will be online in 15 to 20 years. It also takes a long time to update the factory line and improve the new technology. At present, the company is also doing early scientific research in the new trend field, focusing on the recycling and processing technology of other components of lithium batteries, the repair of positive and negative electrodes and the repair of electrolytes and other new technologies ."