Descycle (or “the Company”), the clean tech company developing revolutionary chemistry to disrupt the e-waste metal recycling sector, is delighted to announce that, following a month of successful operation of its bench scale e-waste recycling pilot (Lab Pilot), the Company has achieved the major milestone of Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL 6).
Highlights
- Lab Pilot results have demonstrated metal recovery rates of greater than 99% for precious metals such as gold, silver, palladium, and critical metals such as copper, using our innovative, patented Deep Eutectic Solvents (“DES”) technology.
- TRL 6 is a major development milestone as scientific risk is retired, and the technology moves into engineering scale-up.
- Data supports the design of a large-scale pilot plant, which is scheduled to be constructed in 2024.
- Investor and strategic partner site visits to be hosted throughout October and November.
Background:
In October 2021, Descycle entered into a strategic partnership with The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) to support the scaling up of Descycle’s revolutionary e-waste recycling process technology, from laboratory scale to commercial scale.
Commissioned in August 2023, the Lab Pilot represents the culmination of an 18-month study with CPI and the beginning of piloting work which will support the final commercial plant design.
Located at CPI’s cutting-edge technology centre in Darlington, the Lab Pilot is an important step in Descycle’s commercialisation strategy, demonstrating the efficiency of DES in extracting precious and critical metals from larger volumes of e-waste than previously tested.
Results:
Following a month of successful operation, the Lab Pilot has demonstrated very high metal recoveries of greater than 99%, with all other process steps demonstrating extremely high efficiencies. These exceptional performance figures exceeded Descycle’s internal testing targets.
Rob Harris, Chief Technology Officer of Descycle commented:
“After one month in operation, the lab pilot has already delivered excellent results, with the numerical data proving that DES maintains its high metal recovery rates at larger volumes of e-waste; remarkable for a low-energy low-temperature process. We are thrilled to exceed our internal performance targets, which will be a boon to the commercial impact of the technology.
The data generated from the Lab Pilot will be vital as we work on the design of our large-scale pilot plant, which will take our technology through to TRL 7, the final step before commercialisation.”
Site Visits:
Descycle will be hosting investor and strategic partner visits to CPI’s Darlington facility during October and November 2023.