Firebird Metals Ltd (ASX:FRB, OTC:FRBMF) managing director Peter Allen joins Proactive’s Tylah Tully to discuss successful trials using a pilot-scale calcining rotary kiln at the Hunan Firebird Battery Technologies Plant, Hunan Province, China.
The trials demonstrate significant energy savings, supporting Firebird's efforts in producing low-cost, high-purity manganese sulphate for lithium manganese iron phosphate (LMFP) batteries.
The self-developed electrical rotary kiln showed a 70% reduction in energy consumption, using 80-100 kWh per tonne compared to more than 300 kWh for conventional kilns. This leads to cost reductions of approximately US$30 per tonne, or 5% of total production costs.
The testing was conducted in partnership with Sunward, a Chinese rotary tunnel kiln producer, who co-funded the energy-saving calcining unit.
The kiln, installed at the Jinshi High-Tech Industrial Park, is scalable and is expected to deliver further savings as production expands.
Firebird aims to improve its cost profile while progressing towards full-scale production with potential for the kiln to be used in other industries.
The company has begun designing higher temperature kilns for applications such as lithium spodumene processing and has initiated international patenting of its kiln technology.