Active Clean Energy Materials & Manufacturing

Aqua Cube - A fast, safe and efficient closed loop recycling solution for EOL EV battery packs.

Funder InnovateUK (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation Lincoln Storm LTD
Funding £324K
Period Mar 2025 — Aug 2026

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A Lincolnshire company has built a machine that rips apart old electric vehicle batteries without setting them on fire. The problem is straightforward: EV batteries contain valuable materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, but they are dangerous to dismantle. A battery that still holds charge can short-circuit during shredding, igniting the flammable liquid inside. As more EVs hit the road and gigafactories ramp up production, the volume of spent batteries will surge—and current recycling methods cannot keep up safely. Lincoln Storm’s machine breaks open battery packs mechanically while managing the electrical and fire risks. The company already processes packs for customers. This project extends that work to create a closed-loop system: it will also recycle the “black mass”—the crushed mixture of battery materials—into fresh components for new batteries. If successful, the technology could keep critical minerals circulating within the UK rather than sending them abroad for processing or to landfill. That matters for supply-chain security, for reducing the environmental cost of mining, and for making the electric vehicle transition genuinely circular rather than just postponing waste.

View original technical description
Electric vehicles (EV's) are a crucial part of the strategy to achieving a low carbon future and net zero. With adoption of EV's now increasing rapidly, gigafactories being constructed to build them and the batteries on which they rely, new problems arise; how to safely recycle them at high volume and recover the critical materials in them which are in short supply for re use in the circular economy and battery manufacture specifically. Re- use options for EV batteries are presenting, but ultimately all will need a recycling solution. Plus, there is enormous demand for the critical materials they contain. High volume recycling is constrained because EV-battery packs aren't designed for easy disassembly for recycling. Mechanical processing/comminution is high-risk in the presence of flammable electrolytes and undischarged batteries. This constraint will become more acute as volumes increase. Lincoln Storm have developed cost effective safe, high mechanical break open and processing of EV Batteries to separate the components and internals. We are now using these techniques to actively process EV-battery packs for our customers. Our latest innovation project aims to extend our position in battery recycling enabling us to recycle internally black mass and other outputs from that recycling process so that we now have a fully closed-loop solution.

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Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

EVBR: Development and scale-up of a highly efficient lithium-ion battery recycling process
Universal Battery Recycling System (UBRS)
Batteries reuse and direct production of high performances cathodic and anodic materials and other raw materials from batteries recycling using low cost and environmentally friendly technologies
Research and development of a highly automated and safe streamlined process for increased Lithium-ion battery repurposing and recycling
Research and development of a highly automated and safe streamlined process for increased Lithium-ion battery repurposing and recycling (REBELION)

Original classification

Collaborative R&D

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