Attero Recycling is a leading E-Waste and lithium battery recycling tech company that deals with the world taking out precious metals from the waste and putting it back into the system. This process is a lot harder than it sounds. That is why we sat down with Mr. Nitin Gupta, Co-Founder & CEO of Attero to understand the world of e-waste and lithium battery recycling, the challenges we face in this field and how this company is leading the E-waste & lithium battery recycling game.
Akaash: I know EV is all about silent, and EVs are getting fast but today, we are actually gonna talk about TV recycling and we have none other than Mr. Nitin Gupta, the cofounder of Attero joining in. Attero is India’s leading e-waste and Lithium ion battery recycling company and their innovation has been able to let him recover valuable resources, like cobalt and lithium, which are essential part of making electronics or batteries or even the small electronic devices that you can think of in today’s world. And they also are also into promoting a circular economy, which you will get to in some time. It also helps in reducing the environmental impact, which is done due to the reason of lithium extraction and cobalt extraction.
Nitin: I am passionate about technology and sustainability. I love adventure, I love outdoors, I love to try new things and I am an innovator at heart.
A: How would you take your work life as the co-founder of Attero?
N: One word is hectic, second is enjoyable. We have our ups and downs. But I love what we are doing. Every bit of it and every second of it. Both the lows and the highs are part of it. And I think what is driving us, or driving me in particular is the vision and mission that we are following. In that aspect, we are or I am giving it all of my own to make sure that it succeeds. the challenges also come along and at some point, we have to deal with. Let me take you back and give you an example. The first time I went skydiving in New York. Skydiving, when you do it, you initially have a thrill, saying it is a great thing and you are going to do it. But once you sit in the airplane and decide to jump, it is the scariest moment in life. Once you jump, it is the most beautiful moment of life. Life changes moment to moment, second to second. You just go with the flow and enjoy it.
A: Till you don’t jump and do it, there is very little anticipation of the moment. Is starting Attero and doing skydiving have a very simple experience like till you don't start it but once you do it is clear.
N: Skydiving was normally easier.
A: Okay. It was only one outcome. The parachute opens or not.
N: It will open for sure. When you do your first jump, you are doing it with the instructor right. It's not a solo. With the instructor, you have the hands of somebody who's experienced it, done it themselves multiple times. There is a 99.99% chance the parachute will open. And there are, by the way two buttons to the parachute so if one malfunctions the other one will open. The chances of the parachute malfunctioning are extremely low. In the case of Entrepreneurship, you are all on your own. With your team and the co-founders. So things can go wrong. You have to solve it. There is no expert in the room to solve it for you. Things go wrong 9 out of 10 times. So it is the complete opposite.
A: Part of being an Entrepreneur I guess.
N: Absolutely!
A: Alright, so what would a typical day for you look like? As an entrepreneur, as a person who is like, more than entrepreneurship, it is the space that you are trying to attack. It is so brand new, especially in India. With the amount of limited education that you know, we have according to EV and recycling. How do you say your typical day is when managing this company in this new hemisphere together?
N: It is very exciting. Every day there is a new challenge, something new to look to. And I like challenges and adventure. So every day is a new learning. You get to implement your learnings and see progress. That is the most exciting part. And the industry that we are in Akaash, like you said, is very nascent. Not only are you learning every day, but you are able to sort of put those things into action and see the results.
A: Okay Understood. A Role model in the business world?
N: Elon Musk.
A: Well, he is an eccentric personality in the auto field. So, great call.
N: He is one personality but the gentleman has basically done whatever he thinks is right and made a significant difference to the world in the future through his own intellectual and monetary achievements. I think great achievements from his part.
A: What could you say your most proud accomplishment would be apart from Attero?
N: Apart from Attero, I am an active cyclothon participant and a half marathon runner. I pride myself by that. In the last 12 months, I have done two half marathons and two cyclathons. I lost significant weight before that as well, so on the physical front I am very proud of what I have achieved.
A: It is so good to see that you are so active and have such an adventurous life outside work. Now that we have a little bit of understanding of you, I would like us to now dive into Attero and to this entire EV recycling business, because as much as people don't want to talk about it or in India, we think it is not in a necessity, I have seen worrisome videos where e-waste is almost eroding the GDP of entire country like South East Asian countries. When I see visions like this, I fear that you know, India might also become a possibility like this because this is the biggest market in the world in making right now. With all these in mind, I want to know what is Attero like? If you have to explain Attero to somebody who barely understands EVs, how would you say what Attero is and how it came to existence in your own mind?
N: Sure, very good question Aakash. Attero essentially is a deep-tech company with a very strong focus on sustainability. As a company, today, we have more than 45 granted Global patents on recycling technology developed by us in India. The patents are across Europe and Asia and many more applied here. We are the only recycling and e-waste company in the world to generate carbon credits per ton of waste recycled. Our carbon cryptology is approved by United Nations and is based on the fact that the amount of the energy involved in Attero’s processes to extract pure gold, pure cobalt, pure lithium, aluminum is significantly lower than the amount of energy involved in extracting these metals from either a virgin mine or any other secondary source of the material. Simply put, Attero is the nuts and bolts which make the EV world move around. We are part of the supply chain which makes the batteries. Battery is the most critical function of the entire energy transition theme that is playing out. Whether it is the electric vehicle or energy storage systems, batteries have the most critical function. Out of that, the most important technology today is lithium ion battery technology, largely because it has the highest energy density, fastest, charging time and lowest discharging time. Almost 45% of the cost of a lithium ion battery comes from the metals that make it up, which includes cobalt, lithium nickel, graphite, manganese etc. Attero is into the supply of these metals in the supply chain with a reduced carbon footprint and a much greener source.
A: What I understand is the process by which you take back from the batteries that are used, let's say, from the EV market. Whatever earth metals that you guys are going to extract is taken back and put back into the slider.
N: Absolutely. Basically we produce pure cobalt, pure lithium carbonate, pure graphite gold, silver, copper, aluminum etc. But for producing all those metals, we do not dig up the earth.
A: You said that you put whatever metals that you take back from recycling, you try and put it back into the system. So now my question is that normally putting, recycling something and putting it back to the system was a challenge where the cost of the recycled material does not match the cost price of buying it new which is something the plastic industry is also facing. No matter we do the recycled plastic is always costlier than new plastic. Is this a question that you face even today?
N: Not really
A: Okay. And if not, then?
N: Plastics and metals have a fundamental difference. No matter what you do, from waste plastic, you cannot get virgin quality plastic. You can get virgin quality like plastic but you cannot get virgin quality plastic. Metals on the other hand, can be recycled back to the virgin form – chemically, metallurgically and mechanically. Shape wise, size wise, color wise, whatever it is an infinite number of times.
There is a fundamental difference between plastic and metals with the veracity. Take a very simply example, everybody in India knows about gold. The gold jewelry that all of us are so used to can be remelted and recycled infinite number of times. It does not lose his metallurgical properties. It does not lose the colour or any other properties. Now, the call to the technology and the product processes that Attero has developed and patented globally, our cost for recycling various EV batteries and extracting pure cobalt and Nickel carbonate and graphite is significantly lower than the cost of mining these metals. These are two different factors. Because of the nature of the metals, the output is as good as new. Second, due to Attero’s technological advances, our cost of recycling and producing these metals is lower than mining. And thirdly, our carbon footprint is lower than mining, so just to give you reference, the cobalt that we produce is 68% lower EST footprint compared to whatever comes to various mines in the world. Lithium carbonate is 78% lower carbon footprint.
A: Could you tell what comprises of e-waste? Would you like to explain like an understanding of what all is e-waste and what all e-waste you churn as an organization.
N: Attero is a leader in electronic waste and battery recycling. The kind of products that we handle is anything and everything that runs on electricity. From a CFL lamp, all the way to a washing machine, refrigerator, television, air conditioner etc, all the small home appliances at home, all the industrial electrical appliances. Mobiles phones, laptops and batteries ranging from 30 grams in weight which is a typical phone battery all the way to batteries ranging to 790 kilograms, which is the module of a typical bus battery and everything else in between On the battery side, there are mobile phone batteries, there are laptop batteries, there are other consumer electronic batteries. There are energy storage batteries, which are coming from solar storage, inverters or telecom towers etc. And then there are mobility batteries from two wheelers, four wheelers and large format vehicles. The entire range of input products we recycle. What we produce is basically 24 carat gold, we produce 99.99% pure silver, we produce 99.99% pure cobalt, tin, aluminum, copper, pure battery grade lithium carbonate, which is 99.8% plus. We reproduce graphite, nickel and put it back in the commodities market.
A: I know you can’t give information about your IPO, but what sets it apart? What would you say is helping you gain this much of leverage over the rest of the competition even from a global perspective.
N: There is a single cell battery pack, the laptop, on which I am having this conversation that has 8 cells packed together in a battery pack. Your EV has 400-1000 cells packed together. The fundamental unit is the cell. Now if you open up the cell, there is an anode. The anode is 99% graphite and 1% silica. After the anode, there is a thin layer of aluminum called the anode separator. After that, there is an electrolyte which is a LIFP06 typically. After that, there is a very thin layer of copper called the anode separator, then the cathode. The cathode contains lithium, cobalt, nickel, iron etc, depending on battery chemistry. First, recycling process is a mechanical recycling process where you shred them and do some sort of density separation. Once you do that, you get two output streams, one is the combination of your separator materials and binder materials. Simply put, it contains copper, aluminum, iron, plastic and the second is a black powder which basically contains anode materials and cathode active materials. Or in simple English, it contains graphite, cobalt, nickel, lithium, manganese and a bit of copper and aluminum, which in industry parlance is called black mass. A lot of players in the battery recycling space stop here, they sell black mass.
Attero’s first mechanical process is extremely effective in the world on three parameters. First, in black mass, there is no loss of cobalt, lithium, nickel in the copper, aluminum, iron stream.
Second, the cost is low and third, we are able to process all kinds of batteries. After this, black mass is taken out in Attero’s process and is then put through a graphite bleaching system. A graphite bleaching system is a chemical process where, again, two outputs come out. One is a liquid, which is graphite-free and the second is a residue which contains 94% graphite 6% Cobalt, nickel, lithium and manganese. Because it is a closed loop system, when this graphite residue is sent further, it is refined further in the process and pure graphite comes out, the balance 6% flows back into the system so there is no loss. The liquid that comes out is passed through the copper electrowinning system. Copper electrowinning system is pure copper. You have a tank on which side is anode and cathode. Current is flowing to it. At a specific current, copper gets deposited on the cathode. So again, in your output pure copper comes out and a solution which is now copper free and graphite free. Then this copper and graphite free solution is fed into an aluminum and iron bleaching system where aluminum and iron come out. And this solution, now copper free, iron free, aluminum free, graphite free is fed into a solvent extraction system where there are 3 outputs coming out. One is a copper sulfate solution, second is a manganese sulfate solution and third is a Nickel sulfate plus nickel solution, so cobalt sulfate solution passes through a carbon filter, is then fed into a cobalt electrorefining setup where pure cobalt comes out. Similarly, manganese, nickel sulfate and lithium is again passed through a carbon filter and through a nickel electrowinning system where nickel comes out and lithium is then precipitated using a precipitation technology to get lithium carbonate. Fundamentally, the system we have innovated has many innovations which are very disruptive. For example, globally lithium has precipitation limits. And what does precipitation mean? For example, you have a glass of water and you want to mix sugar in it. After some time you will not be able to mix sugar and it will form as a residue. Basically, replacing the lithium ion with some other ion and lithium falls at the bottom. There are chemical theoretical precipitation limits which we have done away with, with a lot of other innovations we have done, temperature, pressure etc which I can’t tell you about. So, that one part of second part of the innovation is graphite is not only carbon purity, but it also has to maintain a specific shape and size. Otherwise, it can't be used back in the anode. Again, we have chemically made sure that we maintain the size.
A: What I understand is there is a mechanism to take out every element at each step of the way. How you do it is the IP that you guys hold, to yourselves and as far as the lithium precipitation goes, you are like the asterix in the Chemistry book, this is the law but this is the special law. So you have taken out the asterix in the whole lithium precipitation.
I wanted to ask you, battery technology in EVs, when we come out with manufacturers. They all are different, trying to attain different chemistries, different sorts of technology, even construction, the fact is for that matter. So how as a recycling company are you on top of the innovation that they bring to the table? More so, now, there are earth metals, there are non-earth metals, there are so many more mechanisms to take out every element that you go to. There are too many more interesting metal battery combinations that are coming out. So how are you as an organization on top of innovation that is brand new to the market?
N: First, at the core of it, we are an R&D company. At the core of it, we are a technical company, so it is our job to make sure we stay ahead of the curve and continue to develop solutions that will be required tomorrow. So that's the first overarching point that I would like to emphasize here. To do that, to give you some sense, there are various battery chemistries. Last to last year, LTO battery technology was launched by Maruti Suzuki. They approached us saying you guys recycle LTO batteries, we said we don't but we will develop a solution. We developed a solution in two months for LTO battery recycling and we put that to production as well. Now, fundamentally, we treat ourselves as experts in the field of metals and we continue to develop solutions, in both the metallurgical and mechanical side to make sure that any new battery chemistry out there whether in terms of shape and size or in terms of chemistry or in terms of constituents, right, we are able to sort of recycle it to the best capability possible. As an example, battery chemistry ranges from LFP to various NMC, to LCO to LTO, we are recycling in the plant. You will be hard pressed to find any other company in the world which is able to recycle LFP batteries profitably; LFP batteries have no cobalt, no nickel. But because we are able to extract lithium and graphite, we are able to recycle them profitably as well. On the other hand, there are solid state batteries that are coming up. There are metal layer batteries that are coming up. There are sodium ion batteries that are coming up. There is the entire thing about hydrogen that's coming up, right. In our R&D labs, we are already working on all of these. For some, we already have a solution, for some we are developing a solution.
A: It is very interesting that you have also thought of hydrogen because I wanted to ask if hydrogen also has batteries and everything. So, the solution of your battery understanding can range beyond even EVs for that factor. But you are keeping yourself one step ahead of the curve. What would you say are your biggest challenges as an urban miner? Like Attero as a brand. Is there a challenge first of all, and if there is, what would you say would be?
N: There are always challenges. Right now, our challenge is to make sure that we continue to scale the organization up with both the sense of the right leadership team, the right sort of capacities, and the right customers. We are continuously thinking of what to do next and then making sure that we deploy our R&D resources into activities that have both a near term and a longer term benefit for the company. Continuing to scale and develop future technologies is something that we constantly think about.
A: So since you are talking about scaling. A few years back, China had stopped taking all of Electronic waste from the United States. They had a complete ban on it, which resulted in the entire e-waste being either transacted to Russia or the south eastern countries which had like two huge crisis problems of the waste being burned out in the open and everything. As you scale, would you see India becoming an acceptor of e-waste. A complete factory within itself of e-waste or should India go in that direction?
N: From a recycling perspective, what India should focus on, in our opinion, is be the high end refiner of waste. High end refiner is different from recycler. In the battery recycling, let mechanical recycling be done at various places in the world. The black mass, let that be refined in India. Let us produce to the world. Let us produce cobalt, let us produce lithium carbonate. That's a high-end refining job. Without any sort of environmental degradation. And that generates high level jobs. That generates a higher contribution to GDP. Also that would give metal security as well. So from a geopolitical perspective, if India can be the refiner of the world, that's the great position to be in.
A: Okay, so fine mining or fine recycling is where India should be according to your perspective.
N: That's the most tech heavy piece. And that is the highest arbitrage is. Look at what China has done.
A: Rather than doing all the ground work.
N: Why do that? China does not own the mines of cobalt and lithium and graphite. But today, more than 90% battery grade cobalt comes from China, today more than 90% of battery grade lithium carbonate hydroxide comes from China. Today, more than 90% of the world’s battery grade graphite comes from China. They are the world’s refiner. Similarly, India should try and aim to become the world's refiner in the entire EV recycling or the e-waste recycling piece.
A: Actually makes sense because there are a lot of other industries as well who are not trying to go to ground zero and making this up, rather than the fine tuning of it has to be done in India. One last question in the heavy duty aspect of mining. There is something called producer responsibility approach where companies take their own approach and make their own recycling element in house. So do you see yourself as a threat of companies doing it themselves or that your IP is so strong that they will come to you, as Maruti Suzuki has themselves approached you.
N: This is a strategy question. So Essentially you will see, because the field is nascent and growing, you will see forward integration and backward integration. It is very enticing for a cell manufacturer to think, let me own the cathode piece, let me own the anode piece, let me own the mining piece. You can go as far back as you want. Or let me own the battery pack piece and let me own the distribution piece. Ultimately, it starts with that and the world gravitates towards specialization because the market does not pay you enough for doing everything in-house and you are not the most competent person to do everything in-house. We have seen this across industries, that specialists for a particular job are the best people for a particular job. Even in this field, given our IP strength and technology strength is so strong. For an OEM to in-house this will be difficult, compared to partner with us.
