Aqua Metals, Inc.: insider trades · United States · SEC (Form 4)

About Aqua Metals, Inc.

Aqua Metals, Inc. (ticker: AQMS) is a United States-based company listed on the NASDAQ, focused on sustainable battery recycling and critical minerals refining. The company was originally built around its proprietary AquaRefining™ electrochemical process, first developed for lead battery recycling and later expanded toward lithium-ion battery materials and broader energy-storage supply-chain applications. Aqua Metals is now headquartered in Reno, Nevada, a strategically important location within the North American battery and critical-minerals ecosystem, although the company’s earlier development footprint included California. Its business model centers on recovering value from end-of-life batteries and producing battery-grade materials with a lower-carbon profile than conventional recycling and refining methods. Aqua Metals currently emphasizes a platform that can produce battery-grade lithium carbonate, nickel in multiple commercial forms, high-purity cobalt, and related intermediate materials. The company’s key competitive claim is that its electrochemical process can reduce the need for polluting furnaces and more chemically intensive legacy methods. In a supply chain increasingly shaped by decarbonization, domestic sourcing, and traceability requirements, that differentiation is strategically relevant. From a market-position standpoint, Aqua Metals remains an early-stage commercial technology company rather than a mature industrial recycler operating at large scale. It sits at the intersection of technology, infrastructure, and industrial materials, aiming to serve recyclers, cathode-material manufacturers, cell makers, and energy-storage integrators. Its strategic focus is primarily the United States, where policy support and supply-chain localization are creating demand for domestic battery-material capacity. Recent developments reinforce that narrative. During 2025 and early 2026, the company highlighted commercialization progress for AquaRefining™, advancement of lithium and nickel product development, pilot-scale work on LFP recycling, development of nickel carbonate, and a multi-year supply agreement with 6K Energy. Aqua Metals also completed a $13 million capital raise and, more recently, announced a term sheet to acquire Lion Energy, a move that could broaden its exposure to residential, commercial, and industrial energy-storage markets. For investors, AQMS is best understood as a transition-stage clean-tech and industrial materials company: technologically differentiated, strategically positioned, but still dependent on successful execution, capital access, and commercial scaling on the NASDAQ in the United States.