American Manganese Inc has announced the successful production of electrolytic manganese metal (EMM) in the final stages of the Wenden Stockpile reclamation and advanced material processing project in Arizona.
The company said it has conducted multiple stages of bench-scale tests on the Wenden Stockpile material that confirm the viability of its patented manganese recovery process to produce EMM.
The project was funded by an award in late 2020 from the US Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to perform lab-scale work on the US government's 322,000 metric ton manganese stockpile located near Wenden and assess the viability of production using American Manganese's ground-breaking recovery process.
The stockpile has lain dormant for the past six decades due to the need for specialized processing methods to efficiently transform the low-grade ore into useful forms of advanced manganese material for steel and lithium-ion battery production.
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"Our lab-scale experiments over the last year have given us key insights into the Wenden Stockpile material, allowing AMY to develop a purpose-built material processing flowsheet, that we will report to the DLA," American Manganese president and CEO Larry Reaugh said in a statement.
"We see great potential in the reclamation of the Wenden Stockpile and welcome an opportunity for continued cooperation with the DLA to potentially turn the Wenden Stockpile into the only domestic source of electrolytic manganese metal in the US,” he added.
Manganese is listed by the US government as a critical mineral, one of 14 minerals or metals for which it is 100% import-dependent. EMM is on the acquisition list for the US National Defense stockpile. The global manganese market is greater than 41 billion pounds per year, with manganese the world's fourth most-traded metal. There is no substitute for manganese in the production of steel.
American Manganese's patented manganese process is also the cornerstone tech of its RecycLiCo lithium-ion battery cathode recycling process, which extracts lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt from lithium-ion battery cathode materials.
Contact the author at stephen.gunnion@proactiveinvestors.com