Aqua Metals, Inc.

Background

We were formed as a Delaware corporation on June 20, 2014, for the purpose of engaging in the business of recycling metals through an innovative, proprietary and patent-pending process that we developed and named “AquaRefining.” In 2015, Aqua Metals developed a breakthrough metal recycling technology that utilizes a clean, closed-loop process that can produce high-purity metal. We believe this innovative approach can deliver raw materials back into the manufacturing supply chain while reducing emissions and toxic byproducts and creating a safer work environment. In particular, the modular AquaRefining systems have already demonstrated the ability to recover critical minerals from both lithium-ion and lead acid batteries and can reduce the cost and environmental impact of battery recycling.

Aqua Metals has a history of battery recycling, having first owned and operated a lead acid battery recycling facility between 2017 and 2019. This breakthrough technology was initially applied in the lead acid battery (LAB) recycling industry, building the first integrated recycling system for breaking LAB and recovering pure metal utilizing our innovative and patented smelterless AquaRefining technologies. In 2019, we operated our demonstration AquaRefinery at commercial quantity production levels and produced over 35,000 ‘AquaRefined’ ingots operating twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for sustained periods of time.

In February 2021, we announced our entry into the lithium-ion battery (LiB) recycling market through a key provisional patent we filed that applies the same innovative AquaRefining approach. We believe our entry into lithium-ion battery recycling positions Aqua Metals to capitalize on the surging demand for critical minerals driven by the global energy transition, expected to create a $400 billion market by 2030. In August 2021, we announced we had established our Innovation Center in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) focused on applying our proven technology to LiB recycling research, development and prototyping.

During the first half of 2022, we announced our ability to recover copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese from lithium-ion battery ‘black mass’ at bench scale at the Company’s Innovation Center. During 2022, we built our fully-integrated pilot system, located within the Company’s Innovation Center, which is designed to enable Aqua Metals to be the first company in North America to recycle battery minerals from black mass, sell them in the U.S. and position the Company as the first sustainable LiB recycler in North America to align with the U.S. government’s goal of retaining strategic battery minerals within the domestic supply chain.

During 2022, we conducted environmental comparisons based on Argonne National Lab’s modeling of lithium battery supply chains – called EverBatt. The initial results indicate that AquaRefining is a cleaner and more sustainable approach to LiB recycling, producing far less CO2 waste streams than smelting or chemical-driven hydrometallurgical processes currently on the market. In December 2022, we completed equipment installation and began to operate our first-of-a-kind LiB recycling facility, utilizing renewable electricity as the reagent to recycle instead of intensive chemical processes, fossil fuels, or high-temperature furnaces. In January of 2023, Aqua Metals recovered its first metals from recycling lithium batteries using the patent-pending Li AquaRefining process.

In February 2023, we acquired a five-acre parcel of land with an existing building to begin development of our Li AquaRefining recycling campus at TRIC. When fully developed, the facility we envision is designed to process lithium-ion battery material using our proprietary Li AquaRefining technology. Subject to our receipt of the required additional capital, we expect to complete development of phase one, including all equipment installation within 3-4 quarters of securing the additional capital and to complete the commissioning and scaling of this operation at the new campus within 2 quarters of completion of the development. The Company is planning for a phased development of the campus, beginning with the already commenced redevelopment of an existing building on-site into the first commercial-scale Li AquaRefinery.

In the first half of 2024, we made significant progress on the construction of the planned first phase of the commercial Li AquaRefinery. We continue to pursue the required funding for the completion of the phase one development of our five‑acre recycling campus through various sources, including debt, project finance, joint venture and strategic investment options. At the end of 2024, we completed the first multi-week continuous 7 day x 24 hour operation campaign at our pilot facility, demonstrating the ability to deliver exceptional recovery rates and produce battery-grade critical minerals.

In February, 2025, the Company announced its expanded vision to more than double the output of lithium carbonate by deferring the plating of nickel and cobalt to metal form until the next phase. We believe this will allow for several potential improvements to the early years of scaling – reduced CAPEX by simplifying the product set to lithium carbonate and MHP (Mixed Hydroxide Precipitates), more volume of product due to the simplification, further de-risk with the simplified product set, more revenue and overall operating margins with a much improved payback on remaining capital to be financed. The Company continues to seek the funding to complete the phase 1 operation.

Effective November 5, 2024, we effected a one-for-20 reverse stock split of our issued and outstanding common shares. All share and share price information set forth in this report has been adjusted retrospectively to reflect this stock split.

Unless otherwise indicated, the terms “Aqua Metals,” “Company,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to Aqua Metals, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiaries.

All references in this report to “ton” or “tonne” refer to a metric ton, which is equal to approximately 2,204.6 pounds.

Overview

Aqua Metals is seeking to reinvent metal recycling with its patented and patent-pending AquaRefining™ technologies. Aqua Metals is focused on developing cleaner and safer metals recycling through innovation. We believe Aqua Metals can expand the development of breakthrough technologies for sustainable metal recycling and deliver high-value critical minerals back into the manufacturing supply chain while reducing emissions and toxic byproducts and creating much safer work environments.

Aqua Metals has invested in breakthrough metals recycling methodologies that we believe are environmentally responsible, economically competitive, and will help retain critical strategic metals within the U.S. while enabling domestically produced, sustainably produced, recycled metals to enter the supply chain and lower sole reliance on unsafe and toxic mining operations. Since 2015, Aqua Metals has developed breakthrough metal recycling technologies that utilize a clean, closed-loop process that can produce ultra-high purity metals. AquaRefining is designed to deliver raw materials back into the manufacturing supply chain, and replaces the need for polluting furnaces and hazardous chemicals with electricity-powered electroplating to recover valuable metals and materials from spent batteries with higher purity, lower emissions, and minimal waste.

We believe Aqua Metals' regenerative electro-hydrometallurgical recycling method potentially offers a substantial improvement over traditional pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical recycling techniques, which produce much higher emissions, lower recovery rates, and significant landfill waste. We believe the AquaRefining process has the potential to vastly reduce the environmental impact of recycling lithium batteries as compared to other processes while providing a higher yield of high-purity metals essential for the burgeoning US battery manufacturing industry.

We are in the process of demonstrating that Li AquaRefining can create the highest quality and highest yields of recovered minerals from lithium-ion batteries, with lower waste streams and lower costs than alternatives. With the proven ability to recover valuable metals from lithium-ion batteries at our pilot facility in the TRIC, our goal is to demonstrate our ability to process commercial quantities of high-purity lithium hydroxide and/or carbonate, nickel, cobalt, manganese dioxide, and copper in pure forms that can be sold to the general metals and superalloy markets, and can be made into battery precursor compound materials with proven processes that are already used in the battery industry.

The Company is also exploring additional innovative applications of AquaRefining across metals recycling industries at our Innovation Center, including recycling emerging battery chemistries and opportunities to develop additional products for sale to customer specifications.

Our Markets

Aqua Metals’ AquaRefining process produces high purity metals and alloys that can be returned into the battery manufacturing supply chain or sold into metals markets for use across various advanced manufacturing industries. This combination of approaches and the broad applicability of the end products we aim to produce enables Aqua Metals to create low-emissions inputs for the battery supply chain or to help decarbonize other sectors that utilize these critical metals and superalloys – creating a more resilient and adaptable business model for the Company as a whole.

Metals Markets

Most of the minerals and metals that can be recovered in the recycling of batteries of various chemistries are also globally traded commodities. Lead, copper, cobalt, nickel, and other metals can be recovered and sold in pure metal form into these markets at the prevailing price or sold directly to a customer at a price set relative to the current market price.

For example, battery metals are globally traded metal commodities. Metals such as lead for LABs and nickel, cobalt, copper and lithium for LIBs are the essential components for the world’s rechargeable batteries. These metals are globally traded primarily on the London Metals Exchange (LME) and the Shanghai Metals Exchange (SHME) in China also trades these elements. In their pure forms, the other minerals that Aqua Metals intends to recover from spent batteries can be sold into these global markets. Unlike lead markets where recycled mineral content achieves up to 90% of new LAB batteries in a mature industry, lithium and related metals recycling currently achieves only 1-3% recycled mineral content of new LiB batteries, relying almost entirely on newly mined ore and refining to meet global demand.

As noted above, although metals are traded as a commodity on the various global exchanges, the major sales are directly between producers/traders and users (whom are typically battery manufacturers). The LME daily price is used as the benchmark in forming the basis of physical trades, forward contracts, and hedge strategies for both primary and secondary metals, in metal form. Based on market and product knowledge with buyers of metals in the U.S. and global metals markets, different grades (termed alloys) of metal are traded at a premium to the base LME price. Metal alloys, which are typically designed specifically for the customer, are also sold at a premium above the base LME, whereas byproducts (generally lower purity, compounds, or scrap) are traded at a discount to the LME as they are based on the underlying metals content and its form.

The Lithium Battery Market

Global demand for Li-ion batteries is expected to soar over the next decade, with the number of GWh required increasing from about 700 GWh in 2022 to around 4.7 TWh by 2030 (Figure 1 below). Batteries for mobility applications, such as electric vehicles (EVs), will account for the vast bulk of demand in 2030—about 4,300 GWh; an unsurprising trend seeing that mobility is growing rapidly. This is largely driven by three major drivers:

Figure 1: Growth of the Li-ion Battery Market Battery

Battery energy storage systems (BESS) are expected to have a CAGR of 30 percent, and the GWh required to power these applications in 2030 will be comparable to the GWh needed for all applications today. China could account for 45 percent of total Li-ion demand in 2025 and 40 percent in 2030—most battery-chain segments are already mature in that country. Nevertheless, growth is expected to be highest globally in the EU and the United States, driven by recent regulatory changes, as well as a general trend toward localization of supply chains. In total, at least 120 to 150 new battery factories will need to be built between now and 2030 globally to have sufficient capacity to meet predicted demand. In line with the surging demand for Li-ion batteries across industries, it is projected that revenues along the entire value chain will increase 5-fold, from about $85 billion in 2022 to over $400 billion in 2030 (Figure 2). Active materials and cell manufacturing may have the largest revenue pools. Mining is not the only option for sourcing battery materials since recycling is also an option. Although the recycling segment is expected to be relatively small in 2030, it is projected to grow more than three-fold in the following decade, when more batteries reach their end-of-life and greater quantities of manufacturing scrap material become available for recycling.

Figure 2: Li-ion Revenue Opportunities through 2030

Lithium Batteries

EV batteries are powered by a battery pack made up of individual cells. Each cell has 4 components: the cathode, anode, separator, and electrolyte. Lithium-ion batteries use different raw materials for each of the components. The most common material used for the anode is graphite. The most widely used metal for the cathode is metal oxides that are combinations of lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and aluminum. The electrolyte is generally made using acidic salts and solvents such as sulfuric acid and there are also solid-state silicon-based alternatives under development and early deployments have begun. The separator is usually created using a porous, polyolefin material like polyethylene or polypropylene.

Lithium-ion battery recycling is the method of taking EV batteries and splitting it into its components, ultimately into the original raw materials (lithium, nickel, cobalt, etc.) that can be reused in new batteries. While making lithium-ion batteries for EVs is important to address climate change, the batteries themselves are harmful to the environment if left in landfills or burned. Currently, only a small fraction of lithium-ion batteries are recycled and that must get close to 100% both to avoid environmental issues and to recapture the critical minerals in those spent batteries to feed the massive demand growth curve. Battery recycling helps address this problem, but current pyro-based battery recycling technology (smelting) also creates harmful emissions, potentially creating new climate problems faster than they are being solved. There are alternative hydro-based technologies available and rely on older methodologies that are known to create significant waste streams, potentially with more waste than product recovered, which have their own negative environmental and economic impacts.

Black Mass

Lithium-ion batteries are comprised of valuable metals such as lithium, copper, manganese, cobalt, and nickel. Once a battery is retired, the batteries can be collected, fully discharged, then shredded and base metals are separated to prepare them for recycling. This shiny, metallic mixture is what is called ‘black mass’—and it contains all the valuable metals that make up battery anodes and cathodes, the most expensive parts of a battery and the companies that collect and process batteries into black mass are referred to as ‘shredders’. The typical black color is due to the high concentrations of graphite contained in the anodes of batteries, which has a very dark black color. Black mass makes up about 40-50% of the total weight of an EV battery. Materials like the binder, copper, electrolytes, plastics, aluminum, and steel have been physically separated out by shredders before being recycled.

There are two main processes to producing black mass:

Aqua Metals specifically partners with producers that use non-pyro processes in order to create black mass to meet their own objectives for creating low-carbon recycled materials. The exact composition of black mass can vary considerably based on a number of factors. To start, there are many different types of lithium-ion batteries and manufacturing scrap forms, which will revert back to a mix of different elements and different ratios, including lithium, nickel, iron, titanium, copper, cobalt, manganese, and others (their use of lithium is the commonality).

Each manufacturer also has their own specific ‘recipe’ for their cathodes, cell type/form factors, as well as module type and pack assembly for different applications (cell phones, laptops, electric vehicles, etc.). Currently, the most popular types of lithium-ion batteries in the world incorporate significant amounts of nickel, cobalt, lithium, and manganese—so black mass produced today will typically have varying concentrations of each.

AquaRefining Process

We developed AquaRefining to be a cleaner and modular alternative to smelting and chemical-based recycling methods. Our process has two key elements, both of which are integral to our issued patents and pending-patent applications. The first is our use of proprietary, non-toxic solvents that dissolves metal compounds. The second is a proprietary electrochemical process and our modular Aqualyzer cells that selectively target each critical element and converts the dissolved metal compounds into high purity metals and/or salts.

The AquaRefining process begins with the processing of crushed used batteries either in the form of paste (for LAB) or, black mass (for LIB). The active materials are first processed to remove sulfur and then dissolved in our solvent. Metals are plated from the solvent using our patented and patent-pending process allowing the solvent to be reused.

We have demonstrated at bench scale and subsequently in our pilot facility that our lithium battery AquaRefining process can generate cobalt, lithium hydroxide or carbonate, copper, nickel, and manganese dioxide from lithium-ion battery black mass. A significant benefit of our AquaRefining process is that it can produce higher yields of higher purity, and thus higher value product than that derived from primary smelters with product from secondary sources.

Another significant benefit of our process is that we designed our AquaRefining equipment to be manufactured on a purpose-built production line in standard sized Aqualyzers. This is not possible with the smelting process, as smelters need to be constructed on site. This gives us the ability to provide AquaRefining systems with varying capacities to meet the specific needs of potential customers and suppliers. We have also developed an integrated software and portal called PureMetrics that keeps track of production and key operating metrics.

Recycling is subject to a variety of domestic and international regulations related to hazardous materials, emissions, employee safety and other matters. While our operations will be subject to these regulations, we believe that one of our potential advantages will be our ability to conduct battery recycling operations with less regulatory cost and burden than smelting operators due to the nature of our process. One of our key initiatives is and will continue to be, to educate regulators and the public as to the environmental benefits of AquaRefining. We believe that we have the potential to develop a business model that offers the opportunity to conduct, in an environmentally friendly manner, an important recycling activity that historically has been conducted in an often highly polluting manner.

Project Site

Aqua Metals is in the process of building a new lithium-ion battery recycling facility to be located within Storey County, Nevada (the “Project”). The Project is located at 2955 & 2999 Waltham Way, McCarran, NV 89434 (the “Commercial Facility”). Aqua Metals operates a demonstration scale facility at 160 Denmark Drive, McCarran, NV 89434 (the “Innovation Center”) which utilizes the equivalent equipment and technology as is expected to be constructed and operated in the Project.

Figure 3: Aqua Metals Site Rendering

Highlights include:

Our Business Model

Aqua Metals is engaged in the business of applying its commercialized clean, water-based recycling technology principles to develop the clean and cost-efficient recycling solutions for both lead and lithium-ion (“Li”) batteries. Our recycling process is a patented hydrometallurgical and electrochemical technology that is an innovative, proprietary and patented process we developed and named AquaRefining. AquaRefining is a low-emissions, closed-loop recycling technology that replaces polluting furnaces and hazardous chemicals with electricity-powered electroplating to recover valuable metals and materials from spent batteries with higher purity, lower emissions, and with minimal waste. The “Aqualyzers” cleanly generate ultra-pure metal one atom at a time, closing the sustainability loop for the rapidly growing energy storage economy.

We are applying our sustainable recycling technology principles with the goal of developing the cleanest and most cost-efficient recycling solution for lithium-ion batteries. We believe our process has the potential to produce higher quality products at a lower operating cost without the damaging effects of furnaces and greenhouse emissions. We expect to recover lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate, copper, nickel, cobalt, and other compounds in a salable form to either be sold directly to lithium battery CAM manufactures or the commodities market. Aqua Metals estimates the total addressable market for lithium-ion battery recycling will grow to exceed lead battery recycling by the end of the decade. Unlike the mature lead recycling market, the deployed lithium-ion battery recycling infrastructure to serve market growth does not exist today.

Our business strategy focuses on developing and operating Li AquaRefining recycling facilities to meet the rising demand for critical metals used in lithium-ion batteries. This demand is driven by innovations in automobile batteries, the expansion of internet data centers, and alternative energy applications such as solar, wind, and grid-scale storage. Additionally, we aim to commercialize our AquaRefining process by licensing our technology to third parties and forming joint ventures and strategic partnerships with battery manufacturers and recyclers.

We are in the process of demonstrating that Li AquaRefining, which is fundamentally non-polluting, can create the highest quality and highest yields of recovered minerals from lithium-ion batteries with lower waste streams and lower costs than existing alternatives. Throughout 2023 and 2024, we have demonstrated at our pilot facility our ability to recover key valuable minerals in lithium-ion batteries, such as lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate, copper, nickel, cobalt, and other compounds. Our goal is to process commercial quantities of nickel, cobalt, and copper in a pure metal form that can be sold to the general metals and superalloy markets and can be made into battery precursor compound materials with known processes already used in the mining industry. We have operated the first Li AquaRefining pilot plant in 2023 and in 2024. The location for the pilot demonstration facility is currently the Innovation Center with expansion to happen at our new 5-acre recycling campus to commercial quantities. Once fully completed, and based on our new expanded vision to more than double the output of lithium carbonate by deferring the plating of nickel and cobalt to metal form until the next phase, our first commercial facility is designed to process ~7,000 tonnes / year or more of battery materials, which would be enough material to build ~70,000 average EVs or ~300,000 average home energy storage systems. We are proceeding with a phased development approach, and commenced phase one of our campus.

Our focus for the lithium market includes operating our first-of-a-kind lithium battery recycling facility, utilizing electricity to recycle instead of intensive chemical processes, fossil fuels, or high-temperature furnaces. We are also exploring partnership and/or joint venture agreements, particularly as our Li AquaRefining matures. We believe that Aqua Metals is in a position to become one of the few critical minerals recovery players for which our environmental and economic value proposition should generate both great commercial wins and potentially government grants to accelerate our expansion and progress.

The market for lithium-ion batteries is global in scale but local in nature and execution, with large differences in local regulation, custom and practice, and access to transportation and electricity costs. In some regions, it is highly regulated, and in others it is not. Consequently, we are evolving our business model to commercialize our technology optimally across multiple locations.

Competition

Our development of recycling technology for lithium-ion batteries is a unique approach to extracting the high-value metals compared to the array of other potential solutions under development. Currently, smelting is the only commercially proven process for recycling lithium-ion batteries. The smelting process utilizes multiple high emissions steps with low yields to produce materials that typically require further refining before being utilized to manufacture new batteries. Over the next decade and beyond, when the volume of used batteries becomes significant, smelting will likely not be a viable solution due to the negative environmental impact and likelihood of regulatory restrictions on emissions. The other technologies currently under development utilize a predominately hydrometallurgical approach that consumes significant amounts of chemicals to extract the metals resulting in high cost and excessive waste streams. Our approach is a hybrid of hydrometallurgical and electrometallurgical processes like the process we have commercialized for lead, we call it “Li AquaRefining.” We believe that Li AquaRefining, as demonstrated through our lab-scale, bench-scale, and now pilot-scale operations, requires fewer chemicals, generates less waste, and produces higher-purity products at a lower cost compared to both smelting and standard hydrometallurgy.

The lithium-ion battery recycling market is significantly different from that of the lead recycling market in that it is a nascent industry. With no predominant technology to displace, our goal is to enable new and existing recyclers across the globe with Li AquaRefining as a best-in-class solution for meeting the supply chain demands of the lithium-ion battery industry as well as meeting the environmental needs of the planet and the corporations seeking to achieve net zero emissions.

The competitive advantages of the Aqua Metals project include:

Intellectual Property Rights

We regard the protection of our technologies and intellectual property rights as an important element of our business operations and crucial to our success. We endeavor to generate and protect our intellectual property assets through a series of patents, trademarks, internal and external policy and procedures and contractual provisions.

Patent Portfolio

Currently, we have secured 3 US patents, 38 international patents, and 4 allowances (international) for recycling various battery chemistries, including lithium ion and lead acid batteries. In addition to the US patents, we have international patents/allowances in the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization, African Intellectual Property Organization, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, the Eurasian Patent Organization, European Union, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, South Korea, South Africa, Ukraine, and Vietnam. We also have 42 US and foreign patent applications pending with patent applications pending in 20 additional non-US jurisdictions, across five distinct patent applications relating to certain elements of the technology underlying our AquaRefining process and related apparatus and chemical formulations. The claims of the granted patents substantially address the same subject matter and are drawn to various aspects of processing lead or lithium materials using an aqua refining process. Differences in the claim number and scope are due to local rules and practice as well as the target metal.

We intend to continue to prepare and file domestic and foreign patent applications covering expanding aspects and applications of our technology, as circumstances warrant.

There can be no assurance that any patents will issue from any of our current or any future applications. Also, any patents that may issue may not survive a legal challenge to their scope, validity, or enforceability, or provide significant protection for us. Competitors may work around our patents, so they are not infringing. Our patent portfolio and our existing policy and procedures safeguarding our trade secrets nonetheless may face challenges so that our competitors can copy our AquaRefining process.

Trademark Portfolio

We have filed for trademark registration in the US and foreign countries for the following trademarks:

Trade Secrets and Contract Protection

We have developed our internal policy and procedures in safeguarding our trade secrets and proprietary information. Our procedures generally require our employees, consultants, and advisors to enter into confidentiality agreements. These agreements provide that all confidential information developed or made known to the individual during the course of the individual’s relationship with us is to be kept confidential and not disclosed to third parties except under specific circumstances. In the case of our employees, the agreements provide that all of the technology that is conceived by the individual during the course of employment is our exclusive property. The development of our technology and many of our processes are dependent upon the knowledge, experience, and skills of key scientific and technical personnel.

Government Regulation

Our operations and the operations of our licensees in the United States will be subject to the federal, state, and local environmental, health and safety laws applicable to the reclamation of LABs and lithium based batteries. While the reclamation process itself is generally not subject to federal permitting requirements, depending on how any particular operation is structured, our facilities and the facilities of our licensees may have to obtain environmental permits or approvals from federal, state or local regulators to operate, including permits or regulatory approvals related to air emissions, water discharges, waste management, and the storage of batteries on-site should that become necessary. We may face opposition from local residents or public interest groups to the installation and operation of our or our licensee's facilities. Failure to secure (or significant delays in securing) the necessary approvals could prevent us from pursuing some of our planned operations and adversely affect our business, financial results, and growth prospects.

In addition to permitting requirements, our operations and the operations of our licensees are subject to environmental health, safety and transportation laws and regulations that govern the management of and exposure to hazardous materials such as the lead, acids, and other metals involved in reclamation. These include hazard communication and other occupational safety requirements for employees, which may mandate industrial hygiene monitoring of employees for potential exposure to lead. Failure to comply with these requirements could subject our business to significant penalties (civil or criminal) and other sanctions that could adversely affect our business. Changes to these regulatory requirements in the future could also increase our costs, require changes in or cessation of certain activities, and adversely affect the business.

The nature of our operations and the operations of our licensees involves risks, including the potential for exposure to hazardous materials such as lead, that could result in personal injury and property damage claims from third parties, including employees and neighbors, which claims could result in significant costs or other environmental liability. Our operations and the operations of our licensees also pose a risk of releases of hazardous substances, such as lead, acids, and other metals related to lithium batteries into the environment, which can result in liabilities for the removal or remediation of such hazardous substances from the properties at which they have been released, liabilities which can be imposed regardless of fault, and our business could be held liable for the entire cost of cleanup even if we were only partially responsible. Like any manufacturer, we and our licensees are also subject to the possibility that we may receive notices of potential liability in connection with materials that were sent to third-party recycling, treatment, and/or disposal facilities under the Federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, as amended (“CERCLA”), and comparable state statutes, which impose liability for investigation and remediation of contamination without regard to fault or the legality of the conduct that contributed to the contamination, and for damages to natural resources. Liability under CERCLA is retroactive, and, under certain circumstances, liability for the entire cost of a cleanup can be imposed on any responsible party.

As our business expands outside of the United States, our licensed operations will be subject to the environmental, health and safety laws of the countries where we do business, including permitting and compliance requirements that address the similar risks as do the laws in the United States, as well as international legal requirements such as those applicable to the transportation of hazardous materials. Depending on the country or region, these laws could be as stringent as those in the US, or they could be less stringent or not as strictly enforced. In some countries in which we are interested in expanding our business, such as South America, Taiwan and China, the relevant environmental regulatory and enforcement frameworks are in flux and subject to change. Therefore, while compliance with these requirements will cause our business to incur costs, and failure to comply with these requirements could adversely affect our business, it is difficult to evaluate such potential costs or adverse impacts until such time as we decide to initiate operations in particular countries outside the United States.

Employees

As of the date of this report, we employ 11 people on a full-time basis. None of our employees are represented by a labor union.

Financial and Segment Information

We operate our business as a single segment, as defined by generally accepted accounting principles. Our financial information is included in the consolidated financial statements and the related notes.

Available Information

Our website is located atwww.aquametals.com and our investor relations website is located at https://ir.aquametals.com/. Copies of our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to these reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, are available, free of charge, on our investor relations website as soon as reasonably practicable after we file such material electronically with or furnish it to the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC. The SEC also maintains a website that contains our SEC filings. The address of the site iswww.sec.gov. The contents of our website are not intended to be incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K or in any other report or document we file with the SEC, and any references to our websites are intended to be inactive textual references only.