Circu Li-ion cofounder and CEO Antoine Welter says his startup’s upcycling machine can diagnose batteries in seconds. “We all know precisely which cell might be reused and which one can’t,” he informed TechCrunch on Monday.
Circu Li-ion is within the enterprise of saving usable battery cells from shredders. The Luxembourg startup’s machine identifies batteries by their look, by way of AI and a rising “battery library”; it separates cells from different supplies, reminiscent of plastic housing and PVC boards; and it determines the cells’ states of heath.
Cells in nice form would possibly go to make use of in mobility. When their situation is so-so, they could go on to retailer renewable power. And cells that don’t make the reduce go to a recycling facility.
Recyclers normally shred cells into black mass and get better priceless metals via smelting or leaching. Tons of parts get combined collectively and misplaced within the course of.
Circu Li-ion’s machine separates battery cells from plastic housing and different supplies, reminiscent of PVC boards. Picture Credit: Circu Li-ion.
“There’s a whole lot of priceless supplies that we are able to take away that don’t have to land in a shredder,” mentioned Welter. Circu Li-ion claims that “greater than eight out of ten cells in an end-of-life battery are literally not finish of life.”
Welter was tight-lipped when requested precisely how the machine determines battery well being.
“We gather greater than 25 information factors per cell” by way of EIS (Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy) testing, mentioned Welter. “And primarily based on these information factors, we are able to — to a delta of 1.2% — decide how wholesome the cell nonetheless is.” The CEO defined that testing an outdated cell is just a little like deciphering the rings of a tree. “You possibly can acknowledge totally different patterns and see how good the cell nonetheless is,” he added.
Picture Credit: Circu Li-ion
Circu Li-ion prices manufactures and recyclers to make use of its machines and software program. It additionally operates a facility in Karlsruhe, Germany, the place it disassembles batteries.
Of their previous lives, so to talk, Welter labored as a B2B investor and guide, whereas co-founder and CTO Xavier Kohll helped produce a “tender whole synthetic coronary heart” at ETH Zurich, a Swiss analysis college.
Earlier this month, Circu Li-ion secured about $4.8 million (€4.5 million) in fairness financing led by BonVenture, on prime of round $4.2 million (€4 million) in earlier grants from the European Innovation Council Accelerator.
The startup mentioned the mixed $9 million or so in seed funding would assist it scale its machine-as-a-service enterprise mannequin. Circu Li-ion mentioned it additionally intends to construct the “world’s largest” repository of battery recycling information.