[Ferro-Alloys.com] “As Europe and the rest of the world go through a once-in-a-century transformation to e-mobility, Euro Manganese stands to become the EU’s only primary producer of battery-grade manganese products,” says CEO.

The battery metals revolution is here and battery-grade manganese stocks are increasingly in the spotlight.

Euro Manganese Inc (ASX:EMN, TSX-V:EMN, OTCQX:EUMNF) is preparing to take the sector by storm with its flagship project in the Czech Republic, a unique manganese asset in the heart of the European Union.

The company plans to power Europe’s electric vehicle (EV) revolution with its Chvaletice Manganese Project, which, starting in 2025, is expected to produce 50,000 tonnes of high-purity manganese per annum over the asset’s 25-year life.

As the world sets its sights on this essential battery raw material, Euro Manganese CEO Marco Romero sat down with Proactive to talk about the future of the Chvaletice asset.

Manganese comes to the fore

Electric vehicles sales have been accelerating in the last few years, as have the materials that power them like nickel, cobalt and lithium.

But one such mineral that’s seemed to escape attention is manganese. That’s all starting to change.

High purity manganese is a raw material that is increasingly used in battery chemistries utilised by major automotive companies like Volkswagen, Stellantis, BMW, Volvo, Mercedez Benz and Renault. Battery makers use manganese because of its lower cost and its attractive range, power, safety and charging performance.

As a rising star in the battery raw materials sector, high purity manganese use is increasing rapidly, while production lags, resulting in a growing gap between projected supply and demand.

According to metals and battery research firms ESource and CPM Group, in order to meet the anticipated 2030 demand for high purity manganese sulphate — a raw material used by most lithium-ion battery manufacturers — global production needs to increase nearly 13-fold compared to 2020 levels.

Introducing Chvaletice

For CEO Romero, a manganese project like Chvaletice has the potential to have a significant impact on the battery industry.

“As Europe and the rest of the world go through a once-in-a-century transformation to e-mobility, Euro Manganese stands to become the EU’s only primary producer of battery-grade manganese products.

“We expect our battery-grade offerings will be in high demand at a time when European governments and automakers are working to diversify and expand their raw materials procurement options and establish a reliable, sustainable, local battery supply chain.”

Indeed, Europe is at the epicentre of the electric vehicle revolution.

And the Chvaletice project is surrounded by numerous EV, battery and cathode plants that make up the world’s fastest-growing EV and battery production hub in the world.

What sets the project apart?

Romero notes that EMN’s flagship asset is unique in several ways.

“When Chvaletice begins commercial production, targeted for late 2024/early 2025, it will be one of the world’s largest producers of high-purity manganese, an essential battery raw material used in the majority of electric vehicles.

“The Chvaletice resource is the only significant manganese resource in the EU, and the manganese it contains is in a form that is easy to process.”

Chvaletice also represents an entirely different take on manganese production.

That’s because the asset isn’t a mine — it’s a recycling project.

Essentially, EMN’s cornerstone project will reprocess a large tailings deposit from a decommissioned mine, turning what was once a waste product into battery gold.

Romero explains: “This means we won’t cause the traditional adverse impacts associated with hard rock mining – no drilling, blasting, crushing or milling. We won’t make a big hole and leave a pile of waste beside it.

“What’s more, by recycling the tailings in compliance with strict Czech and European environmental standards and regulations, we will be eliminating a longstanding source of water pollution and cleaning up and reclaiming an old mine site, all the while producing essential battery raw materials.”

The project’s environmental benefits have resonated with local stakeholders. Since the early days of the project, EMN has proactively and intensely engaged with local authorities and community members.

“We have benefited from their valuable feedback to refine and improve the project design and development plan, with the goal of successfully integrating it into the local environment and life of the community,” says Romero.

The production cycle

There are several key steps involved in turning the Chvaletice tailings into high-purity manganese products.

And although it’s the first to create them by recycling historic mine tailings, Euro Manganese has based its proposed production method on conventional, commercial technology that’s been around for decades. It has simply been adapted to meet stringent Czech and European environmental standards and regulations.

First, the raw tailings will be excavated and fed into a processing plant, where they’re mixed with water to create a slurry.

From here, it is piped into the adjacent process plant, where manganese concentrate is produced using simple, cost-effective magnetic separation.

The concentrate will then be leached and the resulting solution purified, after which very high-purity manganese metal is made via electrolysis.

Euro Manganese’s base case is to further process about two-thirds of the metal to create high-purity manganese sulphate, which is the manganese product used by most nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) precursor cathode active material makers.

The balance of the metal can be sold for other applications, including direct metal-to-cathode production.

Chvaletice is targeted to go on stream by early 2025, and EMN has done extensive metallurgical test-work over several years to design a plant that can sustainably produce very high-quality manganese products.

“Our extensive test-work programs, including our pilot plant, have demonstrated that the proposed process can produce battery-grade manganese products that meet or exceed the highest industry specifications,” says Romero.

• [Editor:tianyawei]