Mith

Lithium-focused researcher decoding critical mineral extraction, battery production, storage, and recycling, while occasionally exploring EV op-eds.

[Mith @Mith_]

Backed by a team with decades in the energy industry, with experience running and launching large-scale commercial facilities, along with a technology proven out at commercial scale for the production of lithium carbonate from recycled batteries, R3 Lithium is pushing to become the largest supplier of battery-grade lithium carbonate from secondary sources in the United States.

I interviewed R3 Lithium’s CEO, Linh Austin, who outlined the company’s goals, their strategy to achieve them, and why R3 Lithium is very different company from the one that came before it.

https://t.co/geyXIsGeuR

[Mith @Mith_]

Then let’s add what I said when I posted about $ABAT buying that lot.

“This would also indicate that at current operating throughput, a $2 million expenditure was worth adding 10 days of storage to the Nevada recycling vertical. This may have been a direct result of the volume of material from Moss Landing, or it might be that they were unable to fully meet their clients’ needs with a just-in-time schedule due to capacity constraints, and that storage allows more flexibility for their clients and for the company to better meet their recycling needs.”

Now that would tie into a Google review that was sent to me. A truck with feedstock was turned away at the facility, but later they were able to fit it in. This is because of how RCRA Subtitle C treats large quantity generators like ABAT and how once feedstock passes into the facility 40 CFR Part 273 no longer applies to it.

Now it would not have helped with the DDR cells from Moss Landing that had to be diverted to Cirba since under 40 CFR 261 they would not have qualified as universal waste to begin with and therefore could not have been stored there.

But the context you are missing is that location is more than just a line item in the PP&E table and it is more than just a way to alleviate a bottleneck.

This is proof that the company is reaching throughput levels where a just-in-time processing schedule will no longer work. And this workaround, because that is what it is, a workaround to avoid getting a RCRA Part B permit for that location or the main site, is proof of sustainable growth that justified a $2 million expenditure.

[Mith @Mith_]

There is an interesting story behind $ABAT patent for the extraction of lithium from claystone.

One of the things that happened when Ryan was brought on board to what at the time was ABML was a pivot from brines to claystone. At that time the company owned claims in Railroad Valley and I can’t remember exactly where but a few in California just outside of Death Valley.

But these were placer claims with the intent of creating a DLE system to extract the lithium. When Ryan became CTO, they started to collect and test surface soil samples from the claims in Railroad Valley and anywhere else they could get a sample from.

This eventually led to them pitching a project to the Department of Energy for a small scale, and what at the time was something meant to be built on skids so it could be transported, but a small scale demonstration plant for a process to extract lithium from claystone. The result was the DOE awarding the company a cash match grant for $4.5 Million.

The company did not own any lode claims, just those placer claims for brines and didn’t have access to a significant amount of test ore so they partnered with another company American Lithium (not Lithium Americas who are building Thacker Pass) who have the TLC claystone project just outside of Tonopah.

American Lithium would supply the ore and ABML would use it to first develop the system in the lab and as they produced more and more data they needed, they then would use that data to design and build a demonstration plant needed to fully validate the process.

This is where things change a bit.

Without much fanfare, ABML submitted two provisional patent applications in 2022. They were mostly identical; however, one was more focused on the process while still including the systems needed and the second was the reverse of that.

But the part that caught some of our attention was shortly after those patents were filed American Lithium disappeared from any mention of the grant and was no longer listed as a partner in the company media. To make this even more interesting, this was also the time that the company started to buy up claims in the just outside of Tonopah adjacent to American Lithium’s project.

A year after this we found out during a webinar hosted by the CEO of American Lithium that they had dropped out of the grant due to, and this is his wording, “it being a distraction”. This was clearly deflection and the real reason that those provisional patent applications were filed became apparent.

They were protecting the lithium from claystone pltform.

Now on to why there were two patents for the same thing. They wanted to protect as much of the platform as they could, so they filed two applications with two different approaches.

And it was about a year ago that we found out the USPTO had decided that while the platform was novel enough to be awarded a patent they had to pick which route to go with: systems or process, and they went with the process, which is easier to protect.

But this is the platform that they have fully validated with the demonstration plant at the TRIC facility. They even closed out the original grant for it. This patent also works into something Ryan has talked about several times. the advantages of having both a primary extraction vertical and a recycling vertical under one roof.

The BMED for the production of lithium hydroxide used with claystone shares the same engineering principles as the one that will be used with the recycling vertical.

Anyway, a little bit of ABAT lore for those that are new.

[Glenn Turner @glennpturner]

I dug into this a little more and the claystone patent may be the most significant piece of the puzzle.

$ABAT was granted U.S. Patent 12,709,785 in August covering its selective lithium leaching process for sedimentary ore. That matters because the real question at Tonopah has never been whether the lithium is there — it’s whether ABAT can extract it economically at scale.

Add that to the additional claims, DOE-backed refinery work, permitting progress and possible expansion activity, and it does look like a lot of infrastructure is quietly being put in place.

I’m still trying to independently verify the Lithion equipment/feedstock purchase, but if that checks out too, the pattern gets even more interesting.

[Mith @Mith_]

On these two questions about R3 Lithium, because of how long the answers needed to be I felt that a new post was warranted.

First, I think we need to look at the question: can they make it?

Normally a look at the financials for a private company is nigh impossible, but since Ascend Elements went bankrupt, we got a look at them. And what showed up is that while the past management sure did a number on the company, the new management was able to pull the Covington facility out of the gutter, repurpose it to create an actual product instead of just an intermediate, and was able to achieve a month of operations in which they had a positive gross margin.

But as I stated in the article the financial damage was too much and they had to file for Chapter 11.

So the team that successfully relaunched that location already did it once. The only thing that has really changed is they are now investing in upgrades to increase efficiency which will reduce the throughput needed to achieve that positive margin.

Duplicating that model?

That really depends on how they go about it. If they co-locate with another company to add their ESLR component to their black mass production platform, I can see that working out just fine. This is why I asked them if they were exploring becoming a service provider where they would license the tech out.

A standalone site that they would have to build from the ground up could be tougher for several reasons. First of course is even if they use strictly black mass and avoid shredding altogether, black mass is still a spent material that is partially reclaimed and has at least two characteristics of a solid hazardous waste, or three in states like California.

While the CEO said they can get a facility up and running in 24 months, at least a third if not half of that 24 months could be spent just dealing with regulatory hurdles.

Next is they still have, if they are just using the platform they have now, an intermediate to deal with: the lithium-depleted black mass. This of course will be different if they are doing just LFP since then they will have filter cakes of iron phosphate that can be sold directly to CAM producers.

There is however also the fact that bicarbonate methods for lithium extraction do not perform as well with LFP so they may have to go with a different route which fortunately for them is laid out in another patent they have access to, but would still delay a launch and delays cost money.

If they just stick to what they have yes, it will be simpler and cheaper to duplicate but since it is not a complete solution they will still have the problem of getting someone to purchase the lithium-depleted black mass at a reasonable price. If they can move beyond that to use one of the IPs to either produce a mixed metal hydroxide or even individual battery salts they will be looking much better for standalone sites.

So yes on both questions. The first is easier and I think Linh was giving the company plenty of breathing room when he said Q3 2027 to reach full operations.

The second will be an uphill climb, but that is what the team at R3 Lithium’s background is all about.

[Lulu @LuluMedgo]

@Mith_ Great content ! Thanks 🙏 do you think R3 can make it and duplicate this model on others sites ?

[Kyle Chan @kyleichan]

China increasingly sees EVs and autonomous vehicles as merging into a single tech-industrial stack, as captured by the term 智能网联新能源汽车 "intelligent connected new energy vehicles."

If you think EVs are "just" about climate, you're missing the bigger picture.

[Mith @Mith_]

@harboreric I was honestly surprised with some of the answers he gave, not the typical boilerplate that I see from CEOs.

[Mith @Mith_]

Received a few DMs since yesterday asking what I think about R3 Lithium and are they a competitor with $ABAT

Yes they are a competitor to ABAT, does it matter?
None whatsoever.

It is going to take at least 4-5 more companies like ABTC and R3 to even come close to making a domestic supply chain a reality in the U.S., and the more companies upstream of the cell manufacturers that get to commercial scale production the lower domestic cell manufacturers costs will be.

This in turn allows the manufacturers to achieve better economies of scale, which leads to upgrades in their production trains which will result in them being able to match prices from China.

The ultimate goal is to break the United States’ dependency on imports, and this will only happen with a stable and sustainable domestic supply chain.

That is what my focus was on when I did a breakdown of how we got to where we are now with the lithium-ion recycling sector and in my interview with R3 Lithium’s CEO.

https://t.co/geyXIsGMkp

[Pavan Venkatakrishnan @ppavnr]

Permitting reform is many things… an energy affordability policy, a prerequisite for reshoring manufacturing, etc.

But as @JaneAFlegal and I write in @WSJopinion, a deal this Congress is also integral to the success of the next Dem admin.

[Mith @Mith_]

Things are really starting to pick up in Nevada.

Congratlations @CenturyLithium

“The submission of the Mine Plan of Operations for Angel Island is a substantial milestone for Century Lithium,”

said Bill Willoughby, President and CEO of Century Lithium.

“It defines the Project the BLM will analyze, starts the clock on the environmental review, and reflects multiple years of baseline data collection, engineering, and coordination with the agencies.

With the PoO completed, our focus turns to supporting the BLM and the third-party NEPA contractor toward a final Project approval through a Record of Decision.”

https://t.co/ESGNLmDSYa

[Mith @Mith_]

@McReethie @abt_company @EximBankUS @CenturyLithium There is currently 8 phases set out for the mine, and 3 for the processing plant where Phase 1 will be the intial of 5,000tpa that is funded in part with the cash match grant followed by 2 12,500tpa buildouts.

[Mith @Mith_]

@LivicusInvest @Mith @abt_company I have not watched it, but in the past they have always lumped the two together the hydroxide refinery and the second recycling site.

[Mith @Mith_]

If you are not following @harboreric then you are missing out. He is developing an innovative trading software program that looks beyond traditional data sources to help create unique strategies.

In this post, he uses $ABAT as the perfect example of how to structure a trade strategy around a company that releases news once in a blue moon.

https://t.co/qZDFK3tV1S

[Mith @Mith_]

Just a few things concerning the BLM accepting $ABAT Mining Plan of Operations.

This really represents, and this is something that was not included in the PR, a handoff to the BLM for the NEPA review. I find it odd that they did not even include NEPA once in the PR, but it just shows that ABAT assumes people know how all of this works. Then again, there is a negative stigma surrounding NEPA, so it could have just been for the optics.

But for now, the heavy lifting on ABAT’s part is done, and beyond Ryan making sure he is always available for questions, they are pretty much done with TFLP outside of the financing.

This for me means more than anything else since this is only the second time they have followed through on a plan, the first being bringing the mechanical stage of lithium-ion recycling online. It’s nice to see them finish something.

When it comes to worries that TLFP will run into the same problems as Thacker Pass, it is possible. If anything, they will be looking at concerns from residents of Tonopah since they are so close, which is the opposite of Thacker Pass, which was out in the middle of nowhere.

For water, it comes down to usage over consumption and whether they are able to recover a good part of the water used in the beneficiation process. I would say if they are able to recover and reuse at least 60% to 70%, they should be fine.
No matter what, water will be a point of contention, as this is the high desert after all, but overall they should be fine.

On chemicals, they require less because they use surgical rather than brute force extraction. That is why they need more extensive beneficiation than Thacker Pass, where most water usage will be. But because their process is more directed they can use lower concentrations of sulfuric acid and the resulting brine can be fed directly into the refinement train without neutralizing. This reduces inputs and affects waste collection and treatment.

That is the perspective: fewer inputs and lower waste alongside reagent regeneration, which happens because they do not have to neutralize the brine before conversion into lithium hydroxide.

But I am sure there will be drama, and once the draft EIS is released we will start to see the legal challenges roll out. However in the interim, they have several more projects and it would be great if they were able to at least start them.

To quote a friend who once played for the 49ers, one day during practice he was just not feeling it and missed a call. The coach yelled from the sidelines: “Pine, move around, you’re killing the grass!”

Kudos on this achievement @abt_company, but move around, you’re killing the grass.

[Liontown @LiontownRes]

This week, we released the $LTR FY26 Annual Report. 12 months of disciplined delivery, adaptation, and growth in one place. Thank you to our team, partners, shareholders and community for your support. Read more 👉https://t.co/1W6qUW4C6u
#ASX #Lithium #Mining

[Thacker Pass @ThackerPass]

Last week at Thacker Pass, construction crews placed lids on the Sulfuric Acid tanks, which are crucial components of the Sulfuric Acid Plant. The Sulfuric Acid Plant will produce the sulfuric acid used to leach lithium from the clay ore, creating the brine that moves through purification.

To learn more about Thacker Pass, visit https://t.co/Q4D9j6SCIH

$LAC #lithium #Nevada @LithiumAmericas

[Mith @Mith_]

That is one of the scenarios I had proposed. $ABAT could use their grant to pick up whatever DOE equipment is locked up or any other specialty equipment that they can use at the Kentucky site for use at another location.

Since South Carolina looks to be a greenfield site, and with the RCRA interpretations that state has, I hope they go for say North Carolina and find a brownfield site that could help accelerate the build out of a second site.

North Carolina seems to be much more willing to work with the lithium industry, plus South Carolina is getting crowded with companies up stream of manufactures while North Carolina is mostly just manufactures.

[Mith @Mith_]

A company founded by pioneers in the lithium-ion recycling industry is no more, with its major assets sold off over the course of 4 months in a bankruptcy case that was meant to preserve the company but ultimately resulted in liquidation

https://t.co/noq6VHzjtw

[Mith @Mith_]

The question really comes down to what Ryan was talking about, the reversionary interest claim the DOE has on the equipment they helped pay for.

Doesn't even have to be a lithium-ion recycler just a company that can utilize the equipment for its intended purpose of recovering critical materials and injecting them back into the supply chain.

Anyone else will have to work with the DOE on paying them fair market value, and it sounds like without that equipment the site is just a poorly built metal shed.

[Mith @Mith_]

While working on a article about the new DOE grants, I went back in and looked at all of the accounting for the Kentucky grant.

The federal cash match amount was for $311 million (the actual amount listed in the bankruptcy). After they adjusted for offsets and fees/fines, the total cost of the Kentucky location to the American tax payer was $226 Million.

I now you like to track those things so thought you would find that interesting.