American Manganese Inc (CVE:AMY) (OTCMKTS:AMYZF) CEO Larry Reaugh has positive things to say about recent actions by the international community to incentivize lithium-ion battery recycling.
In December, the European Union approved €3.2 billion (US$3.5 billion) in subsidies for seven member countries — Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden — that want to develop the electric battery industry and challenge China’s grip on the sector, according to an Associated Press report.
China, for its part, put in place new battery recycling regulations at the start of the year, according to Argus Media. The rules say that the battery recycling process must recover no lower than 98% of the nickel, cobalt and manganese and no less than 85% of the lithium.
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This effectively prohibits smelting, the company said, an environmentally unfriendly practice that only recovers about 50-60% of the Cobalt and very little of the other metals with no recovery of lithium.
American Manganese’s recycling methods, however, do clear the bar.
“These actions are signs that governments are looking to incentivize innovation,” Reaugh said in a statement. “American Manganese’s pilot testing has surpassed the proposed recovery regulations and positions the company front and center in the effort to meet these new government objectives.”
The Vancouver-based company is making progress on the previously-announced US Department of Energy (DOE) Critical Materials Institute project meant to increase value recovery from lithium-ion battery stacks, modules and cells.
American Manganese said its research and development contractor, Kemetco Research, has obtained preliminary results on the cathode material samples taken from disassembled electric vehicle battery packs provided by the DOE. The company expects to make an announcement when results are completed.
“These new regulations and government expenditures which focus on recycling lithium-ion batteries greatly favours AMY’s Pilot Plant tested technology as a leader in closed circuit green technology for recovering of up to 100% of the valuable cathode metals,” Reaugh said.
American Manganese’s long-term goal is to commercialize its patented RecycLiCo process, which the company says provides high extraction of cathode metals, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and aluminum at high purity, with minimal processing steps
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
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