caustic-soda
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Aepnus Technology
Aepnus Technology is an Emeryville, California cleantech startup that builds ultra-efficient, catalyst-free electrolyzers to turn sodium sulfate - a low-value waste salt produced in enormous volumes by battery-material and critical-mineral plants - back into two industrial staples: caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) and sulfuric acid. By splitting waste salt on-site with renewable electricity, Aepnus lets manufacturers cut disposal costs, reduce emissions, and shorten fragile chemical supply chains, converting a roughly $350-per-tonne waste-handling problem into about $700 of usable reagents per tonne.
Lukas Hackl
Lukas Hackl is the co-founder and CEO of Aepnus Technology, an Emeryville, California startup building electrolyzers that turn sodium sulfate waste - a salty byproduct piling up across the EV battery supply chain - back into the sulfuric acid and caustic soda that battery makers have to buy. The technology grew out of his UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory PhD work on electrochemical water desalination. After hearing the same waste complaint on road trips from California to Canada, he and co-founder Bilen Akuzum turned a laboratory curiosity into a company that emerged from stealth in 2024 with $8 million in seed funding led by Clean Energy Ventures.