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Livium (ASX:LIT) has become one of the nanocaps juicing extra hard, with shares up nearly +30% in Tuesday lunchtime trade as the company inks a deal alongside Melbourne University, laying the pathway for a potential commercialisation of REE extraction technology.
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Similar to a slew of other companies moving into precious and critical metals extraction, from recycled metals (sometimes but not always including e-waste), Livium has today inked the rights to an “innovative microwave technology in REE extraction” by signing a term sheet with the University of Melbourne.
And similar to many companies – Metallium and Talga included as two recent examples on the top of this finance journalist’s head – entering into circular economy streams for metals, there’s a downstream ESG element to it too, with Livium adding its voice to a pool of companies that claim they can recover target metals without using large quantities of acid.
Trader enthusiasm for the green economy, ironically, has returned to the fore on the back of war. Make of that what you will; at any rate, Livium claimed on Tuesday its (or what is soon to be its) tech boasts “recovery rates [of] >95% Neodymium (Nd) and >80% Praseodymium (Pr) (potential to achieve >90%), with an estimated 85% energy reduction relative to ‘hot block’ technology.” The latter refers to a similar low-acid ‘digestion’ method of extracting metals from metallic waste.
All in all, the big headline news is that Livium intends to create a first-of-its-kind Australian prototype alongside UMelb. “Where traditional methods extract REE by acid leaching, solvent extraction, and ion-exchange processes, microwave technology can enhance chemical reactions and alter the morphology of minerals, which is key to selectively recovering rare earth elements,” the company wrote.
According to the company’s chief, Simon Linge, the company intends to divert waste products from the lithium battery industry, to which he says the company remains exposed, in its hunt for waste that can yield REE recoveries.
Of course, perhaps more worthwhile than the process of on-selling those materials will be licensing the prototype, all cards in order.
LIT last traded at 1.6cps.
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