TMC the metals company Inc., an explorer of the undersea resources of critical battery metals, successfully produced high temperature material (calcine) during the first phase of a commercial-scale campaign to process a 2,000-tonne sample of deep-seafloor polymetallic nodules at its partner PAMCO’s Hachinohe Rotary Kiln Electric-Arc Furnace facility in Hachinohe, Japan.

Monitoring the production of calcine inside the Rotary Kiln Electric-Arc Furnace.

Undertaken on PAMCO’s 131-meter-long #6 commercial kiln, engineers fed approximately 1200 tonnes of nodules into the kiln via conveyor at up to 60 tonnes per hour, and produced roughly 500 tonnes of calcine which will cool slowly before being transferred to PAMCO’s demonstration smelting facility.

The process data and operational experience gathered during the commercial-scale processing trial will inform expected definitive processing agreements between the parties.

In November 2023, TMC signed a Memorandum of Understanding with PAMCO to complete a feasibility study to process 1.3 million tonnes of wet polymetallic nodules (PMN) per year into high-grade nickel-copper-cobalt alloy and manganese silicate, which are feedstock for the production of lithium-ion batteries, electrical infrastructure and steel.