Pioneering Europe’s first carbon-neutral Vanadium production
WHAT
Neometals has developed (patent pending) a sustainable hydrometallurgical process that produces high-purity vanadium pentoxide (“V2O5”) from vanadium-bearing steel slag. The patents are owned by Avanti Materials Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary.
Neometals holds an indirect 86.1% equity interest in Novana Oy, a Finnish Company which holds the Scandinavian licence for the process and is developing the first Vanadium Recovery Project (“VRP1”) in Pori, Finland. A Definitive Feasibility Study indicated the potential for lowest-quartile operating cost and carbon footprint.
For more information visit https://www.novana.fi
WHY
Vanadium demand is expected to grow by 8x from 2020 to 2050 driven by its increasing use in stationary energy storage applications.
While the VRP1 technology holds global potential, the European Union is a priority market due to its need for a resilient and sustainable supply of high purity V2O5. This is driven by:
- a near absence of EU primary vanadium production; and
- vanadium’s classification as ‘Critical Raw Material’ by the EU – reflecting its essential and growing role in grid-scale energy storage applications, such as vanadium flow batteries.
STATUS
The project financing process for a first commercial plant is in progress. The EU-funded European Institute of Technology, through EIT Raw Materials GmbH, holds 2.2% equity in the project and has an option to acquire up to 19.9%. The remainder of the equity is held by Critical Metals Ltd (in which NMT holds 18.4%). The European Investment Bank has conditionally approved the VRP for cornerstone debt finance.
Novana Oy has a MoU with STEGRA for Vandium bearing feedstocks for a second potential operation in Boden, Sweden, and a MoU for feedstock with German company Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH.