Renewable Metals is a Western Australia-based cleantech company building a circular economy for battery materials through a novel, lower-impact recycling process. Founded by metallurgists with decades of experience in metal extraction, the company has developed what it describes as a world-first alkali-based hydrometallurgical process for recovering critical minerals from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries. Unlike conventional acid-based recycling, Renewable Metals' alkali process recovers almost all of the valuable metals in spent batteries while avoiding problematic waste byproducts.
The company reports recovery rates exceeding 95% for lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese, including up to 30% higher lithium recovery compared with traditional acid-based methods. Crucially, its process works across all major battery chemistries, including lithium iron phosphate (LFP) - a chemistry that is increasingly common but difficult and uneconomic to recycle with legacy approaches. The process also produces no sodium sulfate waste, a common and costly byproduct of conventional hydrometallurgical recycling, and operates with lower capital and operating costs.
This combination of high recovery, broad chemistry compatibility, and reduced waste positions Renewable Metals to address a rapidly growing global challenge: the wave of retired EV and energy-storage batteries that contain critical materials in short supply. Recovering these metals domestically supports supply-chain security, reduces the environmental footprint of new battery production, and lessens dependence on mining and imports. The company is scaling toward commercial deployment of its technology.
Renewable Metals has attracted backing from major cleantech and strategic investors. In 2025 it closed an oversubscribed Series A of approximately AU$12 million (about US$8.6 million), increased from an initial AU$8 million target, bringing total funding to over AU$38 million since inception. The round was led by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and managed by Virescent Ventures, with participation from Neglected Climate Opportunities, Climate Tech Partners, Investible, and European Metal Recycling, alongside earlier support from ARENA.