Manganese Metal Company (MMC) of Mbombela is on its way to becoming a Western world beater in the supply of high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) for battery electric vehicles (BEVs).

MMC’s R150-million self-funded Plant 1 project under way will likely enable South Africa to get into the global battery manganese market ahead of any other potential new supplier outside of China.

This initial super-fast entry will be followed by growth that will be in step with market demand and the availability of funding.

“This project is much smaller than our longer-term plan for ore-based processing, and that’s why it will be possible for us to supply the market earlier,” MMC marketing executive Madelein Todd outlined to Engineering News & Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview.

Project execution of the initial smaller manganese metal-to-sulphate plant began last month, with orders already placed for the long-lead crystalliser plant.

“We see good growth in demand for battery-grade manganese,” added Todd.

Target markets are Europe and North America, mainly because MMC is already in Asia.

The plant will convert 2 000 t of MMC’s pure manganese metal into 6 000 t of HPMSM with the help of renewable energy.

It will be commissioned in the first quarter of 2026, when the clock will start ticking on accreditation to open the way for shipments of ongoing sales from the start of 2027.

The rate at which the industry is now required to build up capacity has resulted in MMC opting to expedite manganese metal-based production ahead of the longer manganese ore-based production, which will likely follow at the end of this decade.

At this stage, manganese fines or even manganese tailings are very suitable feed material.

“The processes to refine it to the required battery purity are where the capital needs to flow. That’s where we need to apply our brain power, our expertise, and the permitting and the prioritising of building out the value chain must not be on mining. There’s enough. It must be on the midstream portion, which is refining, converting it into the high-purity material that’s needed.

“We’ll add manganese metal into this sulphate plant in step with demand, but up to a maximum, and then we’ll change to the ore-based process.

“We have shareholders that are invested in MMC, they are invested in South Africa, and they are invested in the future of manganese.

“The impact of manganese on the battery industry is potentially very significant,” Todd highlighted.

Manganese brings many benefits to nickel- cobalt-manganese (NCM) battery cell makers, through reducing nickel content and increasing manganese content. This enables the cell to be operated at a higher voltage and BEVs to be more price competitive.

Expertise remains the key barrier to entry in the supply of refined high purity material, other than at the handful of incumbents being MMC, Vibrantz Technologies of Belgium and Nippon Denko of Japan.

Long term, MMC believes that being able to supply metal and sulphate for HPMSM production has a value-in-use trade-off.

Supplying manganese metal, as MMC has been doing for 50 years, involves the shipment of 100% metal units. Converting that into manganese sulphate requires sulphuric acid and acid-resistant equipment on the other side.

“If you supply sulphate, you’re only shipping 32% manganese because there’s also sulphur and oxygen included, as well as a little bit of the monohydrate, the water component. Then you are shipping a higher volume for lower metal content. But on arrival, you can dissolve it in water,” said Todd, who hailed the fact that the midstream in the battery and BEV value chain is beginning to gain important attention.

Engineering News & Mining Weekly: Who is able to do what MMC is able to do outside of China?

Todd: At the moment, in terms of the manganese metal production, MMC is the only non-Chinese company that is doing this. In terms of the material that feeds directly into the battery space, which is the manganese sulphate monohydrate, there are only two companies outside of China that are doing this, Vibrantz Technologies and Nippon Denko. Vibrantz has a manganese sulphate monohydrate plant in Belgium, and Nippon Denko a plant in Japan. But the Nippon Denko plant is really small. The Vibrantz plant is not able to grow its capacity. However, Vibrantz will be adding additional manganese sulphate capacity in Tampico, Mexico, where it has an existing footprint. So, very similar to MMC’s project, which will be a brownfield capacity addition to an existing site, with an existing permit, and with other concurrent product, so that streams can be fed between these plants and Vibrantz will be able to do the same thing in Tampico. So, whatever is not suitable for the battery can be put back to the other products made. Other than MMC and Vibrantz, there’s nobody else that can do it today. Several listed companies have announced plans. Two of those have received grants from the US Department of Energy (DoE) to help to advance their projects. We would love to see more of those projects because it’s difficult to have a market if there’s just two players. You want an open market where price discovery is possible and where there can be healthy competition. These other projects, such as Element 25 and South32’s Hermosa project, the two recipients of the recent DoEgrants, still have quite a long timeline ahead of them, and they are large, standalone facilities. They are greenfield projects requiring new permits and building up just, for example, analytical ability to be able to analyse this high-purity material, needs time. They will get there, but I think it’s going to take several years. Also, one of the benefits of adding brownfield capacity, as MMC and Vibrantz are doing, is that capacity can be added in step with market demand. However, to bring down the unit costs of the large projects envisaged specifically in the US will require big plants from the beginning, with big initial capital expenditure. Then to reach full capacity, you need a ramp-up period. Large equipment can only turn it down by a certain percentage, so it’s tricky to commission. We do wish them luck, and we engage with all the participants.

$166-million Each

In the US, the Sydney- and Johannesburg-listed South32’s Hermosa project in Arizona and Element 25’s high-purity manganese refinery project in Louisiana have both been selected to each receive a $166-million financial grant as part the DoE’s battery materials processing and battery manufacturing programme. Moreover, the Australia-listed South Africa-active Jupiter Mining has reported that its prefeasibility study into its HPMSM project has begun and Canada-listed Giyani has predicted that its K.Hill battery manganese project in Botswana would be one of the biggest HPMSM projects in the world.