As India accelerates toward an electrified future, the question of sustainable battery disposal becomes ever more urgent. Enter MiniMines Cleantech Solutions, a pioneering start-up transforming end-of-life batteries into a renewable resource goldmine. At the heart of this innovation is Anupam Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO, who is redefining how we think about battery recycling with the company’s patented Hybrid-Hydrometallurgy™ (HHM™) technology. With a laser-sharp focus on circularity, low emissions, and high purity recovery, MiniMines is positioning itself as a cornerstone of India’s green energy transition.
Shweta Kumari had the opportunity to engage in a thought-provoking conversation with Mr. Anupam Kumar, who shared compelling insights into MiniMines’ technological breakthroughs, regulatory alignment, and the scalable blueprint that could make India truly Atmanirbhar in critical battery materials.
Let’s delve into the interview to get more details.
- MiniMines is addressing the “white gold” problem with a sustainable twist. Could you elaborate on how your patented Hybrid-Hydrometallurgy™ process achieves 96% purity while maintaining such a low carbon footprint? What sets it apart at the process chemistry level from traditional hydrometallurgy or pyrometallurgy?
Our Hybrid-Hydrometallurgy™ process is designed to recover valuable battery materials, such as lithium and other critical metals, with high purity while keeping environmental impact to a minimum. The process combines select elements of hydrometallurgy and dry techniques to optimize both yield and sustainability.
At the process chemistry level, traditional pyrometallurgy relies on high-temperature smelting, which consumes significant energy and emits large volumes of CO₂. Conventional hydrometallurgy, while less carbon-intensive, often involves extensive use of acids and large volumes of water, generating considerable liquid waste and requiring additional steps for neutralization and disposal.
Our Hybrid-Hydrometallurgy™ differs in three key ways:
- It uses a pre-treatment stage that avoids high-temperature smelting, reducing energy use.
- The leaching agents are custom-formulated and selectively applied, resulting in minimal chemical consumption and reduced secondary waste.
- The system is closed-loop in design, which means water and reagents are largely recycled within the process, minimizing both input requirements and environmental discharge.
This approach helps us to achieve 96% purity of extracted materials, including lithium, with a significantly lower carbon footprint compared to traditional methods. The process is also modular and scalable, making it suitable for decentralized recycling close to cell manufacturing hubs or collection centers. We have secured patents in India and Africa for this technology.
2. Given India’s heavy reliance on lithium and cobalt imports, how does MiniMines; business model support mineral independence and national security in the context of Atmanirbhar Bharat? Do you foresee your model being scalable across India’s key EV manufacturing clusters?
We contribute directly to reducing India’s dependence on imported critical minerals like lithium and cobalt by recovering these resources from end-of-life batteries. The company’s localized recycling approach supports mineral independence by closing the materials loop within India’s borders. Instead of relying solely on raw material imports, recovered and refined resources can be fed back into domestic battery manufacturing, creating a circular ecosystem that strengthens national resource security. This supports the objectives of Atmanirbhar Bharat by helping to mitigate risks associated with international supply disruptions and price fluctuations.
The model is built for scale and can be replicated across India’s major EV manufacturing regions such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh. By setting up recycling facilities near the EV gigafactories, MiniMines lowers logistical costs and environmental impact, while ensuring efficient turnaround of recovered materials.
3. What were the biggest engineering or process design challenges you faced while developing the closed – loop HHM™ system—and how did you overcome them?
Creating the closed-loop HHM™ system involved several hurdles. One of the major challenges that we faced in developing the process was designing a process that could handle diverse battery chemistries while maintaining material purity and minimizing waste. Lithium-ion batteries differ widely in composition, and creating a standardized, scalable process that could adapt to this variability required extensive experimentation and process optimization. We addressed this by conducting lab and pilot-scale experiments, modifying chemical formulations, and refining process conditions through data analysis. The use of automation and control systems helped stabilize operations and maintain consistent output. This step-by-step approach led to a solution designed for handling battery waste.
Maintaining thermal stability and preventing hazardous emissions during early-stage mechanical and chemical pre-treatment also posed risks. We overcame this by developing a controlled, low-temperature pre-processing system that safely neutralizes reactive components before hydrometallurgical treatment begins.
Through a combination of in-house R&D, and collaboration with academic partners, we were able to refine the HHM™ system into a commercially viable, low-footprint process that can recover high-purity materials at scale.
4. India recently revised its Battery Waste Management Rules (BWMR). How is MiniMines aligning its compliance strategy with these regulations?
We have aligned our operations with the evolving Battery Waste Management Rules (BWMR), particularly the 2025 amendments that emphasize Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and digital compliance mechanisms. We have registered with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) through the centralized EPR portal to ensure transparency and traceability in our processes.
5. Considering the environmental implications of battery recycling globally, how does MiniMines benchmark its sustainability metrics (like water usage, carbon footprint, effluent generation) against leading recyclers in Europe or North America?
At MiniMines, we recognize that true leadership in battery recycling means not just recovering valuable materials, but doing so with minimal environmental impact.
We actively benchmark our operations against leading European and North American recyclers across several key metrics:
- Water Usage: Our proprietary Hybrid hydrometallurgy process is designed with closed-loop water systems, achieving over 90% water recycling efficiency. This puts us on par with facilities like Umicore and significantly ahead of traditional hydrometallurgy and smelting operations that can consume 3-5x more water per ton processed.
- Carbon Footprint: By operating at lower temperatures than pyrometallurgical processes and utilizing renewable energy where possible, we are preventing the scope 1 carbon emissions to approximately 1.2 tons CO2 equivalent per ton of battery processed – which is at par with market leaders.
- Effluent Management: Our zero liquid discharge approach ensures that treated water meets or exceeds both Indian PCB standards and European REACH compliance requirements. The treated water is reused leaving no liquid waste residue. We’ve invested heavily in advanced treatment systems that often surpass what’s required locally.
- Material Recovery Rates: We’re achieving 95%+ recovery rates for critical materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel – matching or exceeding the performance of established players in mature markets.
The key difference is that we’re building these sustainability standards from day one, rather than retrofitting older facilities. This gives us a competitive advantage in both environmental performance and operational efficiency. We also regularly engage with international recycling associations and participate in global sustainability frameworks to ensure we’re not just meeting today’s standards, but anticipating tomorrow’s requirements.
Transparency in these metrics isn’t just good practice – it’s essential for building trust with OEMs, regulators, and communities as the industry scales globally.
6. What kind of ecosystem partnerships is MiniMines building—with OEMs, gigafactories, battery pack assemblers, or government bodies—to strengthen circularity in the battery value chain?
We are actively building partnerships across the battery value chain to strengthen circularity and support India’s transition toward a more resource-secure energy ecosystem. These collaborations span OEMs, gigafactories, battery pack assemblers, and government stakeholders, all with the goal of enabling a closed-loop system for critical battery materials.
We have partnered with EV fleet operators and OEMs to streamline the collection of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries, which we process at our operational facility in Dodballapur, Bangalore. Strategically located near key battery hubs, this plant allows us to manage logistics efficiently, from sourcing spent batteries to returning refined materials back into the production cycle. We are currently scaling the facility’s capacity from 3,000 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes annually to meet growing demand.
In tandem, we are working with battery manufacturers and gigafactories to ensure that the materials we recover, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese, can be directly reused in the form of battery-grade precursor and cathode materials. Our proprietary Hybrid-Hydrometallurgy™ process is central to this effort, enabling us to meet purity benchmarks essential for reintegration into cell manufacturing.
On the policy front, we engage with government bodies to align our operations with regulatory frameworks and contribute to the development of sustainable practices in battery waste management. We believe that long-term collaboration between recyclers, producers, and regulators is essential to achieve India’s circularity and self-reliance goals in battery manufacturing.
Through these efforts, helping to close the material loop in India’s fast-growing EV and energy storage sectors.
7. With founders recognized under Forbes 30 under 30, what’s the long-term vision for MiniMines? Are you exploring international expansion, technology licensing, or deep tech incubation in areas beyond lithium-ion batteries—like sodium-ion or solid-state batteries?
Our long-term vision is to become a leading circular energy materials company that supports sustainable electrification across India and beyond. As the adoption of electric vehicles grows and battery manufacturing scales up, we plan to expand our recycling and material recovery footprint across key EV manufacturing and consumption clusters. The upcoming facility in the North is a step in that direction, and we envision establishing a network of decentralized recycling hubs to ensure efficient logistics and localized processing of battery waste.
While our current focus is on lithium-ion battery recycling, we are also actively tracking developments in emerging chemistries such as sodium-ion and solid-state batteries. Our in-house R&D team is working on adaptable process frameworks that can be extended to these next-generation batteries when they reach commercial scale. The idea is to future-proof our platform so it remains relevant across evolving battery technologies.
8. Lastly, as a clean-tech start-up in a capital-intensive sector, how do you balance the dual pressure of tech innovation and operational scalability? What’s your roadmap for achieving profitability while remaining sustainable?
From the outset, we have built MiniMines on a modular engineering approach, which has helped us to scale in phases while closely monitoring process efficiency and output quality. Our technology Hybrid-Hydrometallurgy™ was developed to deliver high recovery with lower energy and water consumption, making the core technology inherently more sustainable and cost-effective at scale.
On the business side, we focus on aligning capacity expansion with actual and projected demand from battery waste generators such as OEMs, gigafactories, and cell manufacturers. This demand-led approach helps us avoid over-investment and ensures that each facility reaches breakeven faster. Our current unit in Bangalore has already reached operational stability, and the upcoming plant in Uttar Pradesh is designed using learnings from our first site to optimize both cost and throughput.
To maintain this balance going forward, our roadmap includes diversifying revenue through value-added material recovery, improving automation to reduce manpower dependency, and forming ecosystem partnerships that reduce customer acquisition costs. Profitability will be achieved by integrating these levers while maintaining discipline on resource use and lifecycle impact. Sustainability, for us, is not just an environmental goal but a business principle that guides all operational and investment decisions.
