Element 25 Limited announced to confirm the grant of an Innovation Patent for a flowsheet1 it designed for the extraction of manganese from run-of mine concentrate from the Company's 100%-owned, world-class Butcherbird Manganese operation in Western Australia (Project). The patent is based on a process-proven ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure leach with multiple rounds of testing successfully leaching Project ores to produce a manganese sulphate solution, achieving high recoveries and excellent selectivity against undesirable impurities. This solution is further processed to produce battery-grade High Purity Manganese Sulphate Monohydrate (HPMSM) for the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles (EV). As previously announced, recent test work confirmed high extraction rates of up to 97% in under 60 minutes, with the bulk of the extraction taking place in the first 15 minutes of the reaction. Importantly, this round of extraction tests utilised an alternative reagent offering advantages over that used previously in terms of availability, cost, process simplification and carbon intensity, in keeping with the Company's objective of becoming a low cost Zero Carbon ManganeseTM producer. E25's Business Development team is focussing on the next stages of the multi-stage development strategy, including a Stage 2 expansion of the concentrate business followed by a Stage 3 development to convert the concentrate material into high purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) for electric vehicle (EV) batteries to power the global transition away from fossil fuel powered mobility. Manganese is emerging as an increasingly important ingredient for EV batteries, with potential supply constraints for nickel and cobalt forcing battery manufacturers to look to high manganese cathodes to produce the vast amount of cathode material required by the EV industry in coming years. The Project is ideally placed to feed this potential demand, with advanced flowsheet development work undertaken in 2019 and 2020 confirming a simple leach process for E25 ores which, when combined with offsets, will target the world's first Zero Carbon ManganeseTM for EV cathode manufacture. As battery electric vehicle (BEV) makers seek to increase the uptake of electric vehicles, one commercial driver is cost reduction. VW's Power Day suggested a 50% cost reduction for batteries with cell design (-15%), production process (-10%), cathode/anode materials (-20%) and battery systems (-5%) driving the change. Global BEV penetration is expected to rise to 15.2% by 2025 and 39.5% in 2030 ­ led by Europe and China. The main driver in the cathode materials is a shift to a high manganese cathode material for the volume production, which is expected to underpin strong demand growth for battery-grade manganese sulphate. Estimates put demand by 2030 at 13 times current supply and a deficit of 1.3Mt even factoring in planned supply increases.