“Christchurch-based Aspiring Materials has developed a patented chemical process that produces multiple valuable minerals from olivine, leaving no harmful waste behind. Perhaps most interesting to the energy sector is the rarest of its products—hard-to-source nickel-manganese-cobalt hydroxide that is increasingly required for lithium-ion battery production…

About 50 percent of what the process makes is silica that can be a partial replacement for Portland cement, the most common variety of cement in the world. About 40 percent is a magnesium product suitable for use in carbon sequestration, wastewater treatment, and alloy manufacturing, among other things. The final 10 percent is a mixed metal product—iron combined with small quantities of a nickel-manganese-cobalt hydroxide. The battery industry calls it NMC, and it is the go-to material for high-power applications.

Danczyk explains that at the end of the extraction process, they’re left only with a salty brine.”

From IEEE SPectrum.