Brisbane company tackles big battery recycling

Kilo, mega, giga. That’s the growth trajectory for one of Queensland’s most prospective battery tech companies. You’ve got more fingers on one hand than years that north Brisbane-based Vaulta has been registered and it’s forecasting a million-dollar turnover this year in line with an increase of staff from two to nine in just over six months. Vaulta is a battery casing technology company using advanced composite materials to develop a lighter, smaller battery case 'with fewer parts, creating scalable efficiencies and opportunities for manufacturers.' Related: The case for a superior battery case This week marked a turning point towards production of batteries said company founder and chief executive officer Dominic Spooner. Vaulta chief executive officer Dominic Spooner “So even today actually was the first point where we delivered some materials into dedicated production facility," he said. "The R and D route goes back to some of my initial ideas and space of battery design/ battery pack design which goes back to about 2018. “And then 2020 was basically a fundraising year to get the company off ground. 2021 was very much R and D based. 2022 we evolved into developing products, utilising our intellectual property. “And then 2023 is about expanding and improving that technology in the field. 2024 we hope will be around growth.” The company has developed a patented process to help batteries better contribute to the circular economy, part of which includes replacing fuel cells in reusable casements. The size of the issue to be addressed was starting to be realised, with thousands of tonnes of EV batteries reaching the end of life in the next five to 10 years, Mr Spooner said. “We'll end up with a lot of batteries in storage and warehouses, without any serious solutions of how to deal with that. And they would also need to undertake dangerous goods freight to get to a recycling facility, or once yet they could end up in a landfill. “So you do see a lot of battery fires starting to creep in into landfills as well, which is the sort of an ultimate of where things could get to if we don't do something about it.” Related: Spreading mining message as transition fuels demand Circularity of battery design was winning the support of industry, Mr Spooner said. “If you can disassemble down to a smaller unit or smaller package, then you're actually only recycling what you need to,” he said. “… if you've got a hundred battery cells in a product, (it’s) pretty unlikely that they're going to fail at the same time, but there's potential for only removal of what you need to repair and put it back in field. “Or you can take that battery out of commission and disassemble it, use it for a refurbished package, and then send to recycling only what you need to. “So it's less burden on that recycling process in the first place, which we would expect to become a fairly inundated industry over the next three to five years.” Vaulta is already exporting and sees favourable market conditions in places including the EU where mandatory recycled content used in battery production was likely to be enforced within two years. That was in line with the increase in the company’s forecast production, Mr Spooner said. “We expect some time over the next six months with this renewed capacity to get into the megawatt hour region of battery capabilities three years from now," he said. “We're hoping that that gets into the gigawatt hour capacity and that means that when it comes to these 150, 200 megawatt/hour battery projects that we're at the top of the pile when it comes to installations of battery packs in Queensland and broadly Australia and other parts of the world. “… generally speaking, we expect to reach a million dollars in revenue during this year. So as full operational year of selling, finished product and we would expect three times growth in the following year and then look to perhaps get up to around 15 million in revenue the year after that. “Now there's nothing to say that we can't get right up into the hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue figures, but there's a long way to go and a lot of water that needs to go under the bridge before that happens.” The company has several offers to big industry including helping mining companies electrify their fleets.

Brisbane company tackles big battery recycling

Industry Queensland

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