The Lithium Australia NL (ASX: LIT) share price has edged lower today despite the the company announcing it has strengthened IP protection for its battery recycling process. At the time of writing, the Lithium Australia share price has edged 1.85% lower to 5.3 cents.
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What does Lithium Australia do?
Lithium Australia, formerly known as Cobre Montana, is a developer of disruptive lithium extraction technologies. It has strategic alliances with a number of companies, potentially providing access to a diversified lithium mineral inventory.
Lithium Australia strives for energy-efficient recovery of lithium from mine waste to create primary battery chemicals. It aims to convert primary battery chemicals into cathode materials through recycling of energy metals from spent lithium-ion batteries (LIB) and alkaline batteries.
Lithium waste is growing at an exponential rate and there is an ever increasing shift towards the use of electric vehicles around the world. Lithium Australia aims to capitalise on these trends and may also see some upside from the recycling of other battery components, such as nickel, cobalt and manganese. Shareholders will be hoping the Lithium Australia share price can hitch a ride on Europe's lithium bandwagon.
What did the company announce?
The Lithium Australia share price is flat today despite the company advising it has filed two provisional patent cooperation treaty applications relating to the recycling of battery materials, specifically with regard to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). The first application involves the recovery of electrode materials and electrolyte from spent LIBs. The second involves the selective separation of mixed metal sulphates.
These processes are ideal for the efficient recycling of end-of-life electric vehicle batteries in that they generate high value chemicals for return to the circular battery economy.
Lithium Australia MD, Adrian Griffin, was pleased as he announced:
Lithium Australia, through its recycling subsidiary Envirostream Australia Pty Ltd, is a leader in the field of battery recycling technologies. With our recent successful capital raising, we're in a strong position to accelerate commercialisation of the technologies discussed here. Indeed, the first of those has already been implemented on a commercial scale at our Melbourne processing plant.
Foolish takeaway
While the majority of hype regarding electric vehicles and batteries has been surrounding companies such as Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA), Nikola Corporation (NASDAQ: NKLA) and, closer to home, Novonix Ltd (ASX: NVX), Lithium Australia provides an alternate entry point. Nonetheless, shareholders have been left wanting with the Lithium Australia share price experiencing a 12% decline so far this year.
