American Manganese Inc (CVE:AMY) (OTCQB:AMYZF) (FRA:2AM) told investors it had now received its patent covering its ground-breaking battery recycling process in South Korea, strengthening its patent portfolio.
As reported in March 2021, the company revealed it had received a 'notice of allowance' from the Korean intellectual property (IP) Office for the National Phase Patent Application.
READ: American Manganese prepares cathode precursor for production testing as part of lithium-ion battery recycling process
"We are extremely excited to have been granted a Korean patent, as I believe it offers significant recognition of our research and development strategies," said Larry Reaugh, CEO of American Manganese in a statement.
"We continue to lead in recycling innovation and benchmark the extraction efficiency and quality potential of our hydrometallurgical process."
American Manganese has been working with its research partner Kemetco since 2016 on advancing its RecycLiCo process, which sees key metals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel, recovered from scrap lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles (EVs).
The rapid growth in demand for lithium-ion batteries, particularly for electric vehicles, is coupled with an increasing concern for lithium-ion battery waste and the critical material supply chain, says the company.
It added that the granting of this Korean patent confirms that the firm's recycling research is both novel and inventive, which includes key aspects such as:
- Treatment of several cathode chemistries such as lithium cobalt oxide (LCO), lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC), and lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide (NCA).
- Methods for achieving 100% extraction of cobalt, nickel, manganese, aluminum for all cathode chemistries tested.
- Method for achieving 100% lithium extraction by a novel locked cycle process.
RecycLiCo offers a closed-loop and environmentally-friendly solution to recycle cathode materials.
Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com