Green Lithium Refining: Our Investment in Mangrove Lithium
We are very excited to announce our lead investment in Mangrove Lithium’s Series A-1 financing round. Mangrove Lithium has developed the world’s lowest-cost, feedstock-flexible, and modular lithium-refining solution for producing battery-grade lithium hydroxide and carbonate. With this investment, Mangrove will complete its first commercial scale demonstration plant, expand its team, and begin to deploy its technology globally.
Lithium is a key component to electric vehicle batteries, and at current levels of lithium production, the upcoming sharp ramp-up of electric vehicles may lead to shortages over the next decade.
The capital markets clearly are anticipating this future demand, with lithium prices soaring 450%+ year-over-year to its all-time high.
Lithium Supply, Demand, and Market Pricing (Source: BloombergNEF, Investing.com)
Amid lithium producers announcing new lithium supply a record pace to try to meet this demand, there is a substantial need for technologies that enable less expensive, environmentally-friendly, and highly-standardized lithium, which is future-proof to (i) new lithium battery chemistries, (ii) raw material feedstock compositions, and (iii) geopolitical or other supply chain disruptions.
Mangrove is well-positioned to execute on this problem statement from both a technology perspective and its placement in the lithium value chain. The Company’s breakthrough technology enables virgin and recycled raw lithium material to be refined directly into battery-grade lithium through a proprietary electrochemical process for input into any type of lithium-ion battery.
Illustrative Lithium-ion Battery Value Chain from Extraction to Recycling
Through this proprietary technology and placement in the value chain, Mangrove creates significant value for lithium producers and battery recyclers, as well as downstream battery electrode and cell manufacturers and electric vehicle OEMs.
Specifically, for upstream producers and recyclers, Mangrove’s value proposition includes:
Future proofs operations for different cathode chemistries in automotive EV batteries by enabling both lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide to be produced from the same facility to meet future customer demands with limited changeover.
Enables feedstock flexibility, meaning the technology can be used for both lithium chloride and lithium sulfate, or other lithium salts, regardless of whether it comes from hard rock, brine, or clays.
Eliminates capex with its modular and mobile plants, and for brine producers specifically, eliminates the need to construct a dedicated carbonate to hydroxide conversion plant by instead converting directly to higher-purity hydroxide.
Premium pricing as hydroxide is traditionally sold at a premium relative to carbonate, enabling a higher end-product price point for producers.
Increases production margins by eliminating many operating inputs, reducing processing time, and ability to use renewable energy.
Improves project ROI and cash flow profile, and thus “bankability” which allows more lithium assets to come online faster.
Provides a closed loop system for DLE (direct lithium extraction) providers by producing the largest consumables required by DLE systems while converting the lithium chloride or sulfate to hydroxide.
In addition to these items, Mangrove also creates additional value for downstream battery and electric vehicle providers:
Improves the sustainability profile and is better for local and global communities, meets end-consumer expectations, and aids in regulatory compliance by eliminating harmful chemicals and reagents, reducing process intensity, and can be powered by renewable energy.
Mitigates supply chain risk with domestic operations, enabled through highly modular systems that can be vertically integrated or co-located near other value chain partners, and then picked up and shipped to a new location if needed.
Ensures the highest quality and standardization of the lithium material that matches specifications and reduces performance/warranty issues.
Enables electric vehicle adoption by expanding lithium supply by improving the economic profile of lower concentration lithium deposits assets.
Mangrove creates this value due to its novel oxygen-air cathode and multi-compartment cell design. The multi-compartment cell design is the key to enabling flexible feedstock concentrations and compositions—in other words, the ability to process either lithium chloride or lithium sulfate directly from upstream lithium extraction processes.
While multiple compartments generally would require more energy, Mangrove’s oxygen-air cathode uses oxygen directly from the air to fuel the underlying chemical reactions, which has the effect of reducing the required voltage and thus total energy consumption.
Visiting The Mangrove Team in Front of The Commercial-Scale Modular Plant in Vancouver, Canada.
With this investment, we are incredibly excited to be joined by return investor Breakthrough Energy Ventures and to support Mangrove on its mission to enable the next generation of lithium production for electric vehicles.
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Please note these statements represent my own views and do not constitute investment advice or a solicitation to purchase securities.