NEO commissions heavy rare earth separation production line in Europe

Canada-based NEO Performance Materials has commissioned a small-scale heavy rare earth element (HREE) production line at its Silmet facility in Estonia.

The solvent extraction line is operating at nameplate capacity and the company is now focusing on delivering stable product purity before transitioning to routine production capacity.

The facility has produced its first separated terbium and dysprosium process solutions, which are precursor products for metal making, from mixed rare earth carbonate feedstock. The processing was completed entirely in Europe. This validates the technical robustness and operational reliability of the Silmet solvent extraction line under continuous operating conditions, a step towards establishing advanced heavy rare earth separation capability in Europe, NEO noted.

Dysprosium and terbium are essential inputs for high-performance sintered rare earth permanent magnets used in robotics, EV traction motors, wind turbines and industrial automation applications.

Developing separation capability at Silmet is part of NEO’s strategy to develop a secure, Europe-based supply chain to support its growing magnet manufacturing operations and supply chain diversification.

NEO’s permanent magnet facility in Estonia is advancing through customer qualification and is expected to ramp up commercial production later this year.

“The successful launch of our heavy rare earth separation in Estonia represents a critical step in NEO’s strategy to build the most vertically integrated rare earth magnetics value chain in Europe,” said Rahim Suleman, President and CEO of NEO.

“Our rare earth value chain now spans both light and heavy rare earth processing, enabling the separation and finishing of select elements into value-added, engineered end-use applications. This achievement enables NEO to provide secure, traceable, and high-quality heavy rare earth materials to our European permanent magnet facility, supporting our customers’ most demanding applications,” Suleman added.

Source: NEO Performance Materials

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Nouveau Monde Graphite secures $297 million to advance Canadian graphite mine project

Canadian graphite mine developer Nouveau Monde Graphite (NMG) has received a commitment of $297 million in financing to support its Phase 2 Matawinie Mine project.

The company will receive an equity investment of $82 million from Canada Growth Fund, $61 million from the Government of Québec through Investissement Québec, and $70 million from Italian oil giant Eni. The company has also launched a public offering of subscription receipts for gross proceeds of approximately $84 million.

The total $297 million financing is expected to fully fund the graphite mine, enabling the company to advance toward its final investment decision and construction.

The participation of Investissement Québec and the Canada Growth Fund builds on their prior support for the project and the broader ore‑to‑battery‑material supply chain.

As a condition of Eni’s equity investment, it will negotiate a potential offtake agreement for 15,000 tons per annum of graphite concentrate from the mine or equivalent in active anode material.

In recent months, NMG has advanced its execution strategy for the project. The company said it has advanced construction preparation, engineering and procurement, and awarded contracts representing over 50% of the project’s capital expenditure budget. NMG’s construction manager, Pomerleau, has started work on-site to supervise the start of the contractors’ arrival and preliminary civil works scheduled to get underway in the coming weeks.

The company has also acquired a brownfield site adjacent to its greenfield property to build the Bécancour Battery Material Plant, to supply 13,000 tons of active anode material annually to Panasonic Energy. The company is updating its feasibility study and advancing procurement negotiations with key equipment suppliers with a view to proceeding with an investment and construction decision during the second half of 2026.

Shareholders Panasonic and Mitsui have indicated their intention to vote in favor of the Matawinie mine transaction and have reiterated their interest in making an equity investment in the Bécancour plant.

Source: Nouveau Monde Graphite

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Full Circle Lithium sells its battery fire extinguishing agent to US waste management operator

US-based Full Circle Lithium has made its first commercial sale of FCL-X, its lithium-ion battery fire extinguishing agent, to a US-based waste management operator for on-site deployment.

The sale highlights the escalation of lithium-ion battery fires in landfills, recycling facilities and waste collection systems in North America, the company noted.

More than 5,000 fires occur annually at recycling facilities internationally, many linked to lithium-ion batteries, the company said. Some 2,400 waste facility fires were estimated to have taken place in the US and Canada in 2022.

Lithium-ion battery fires are driven by thermal runaway, a self-sustaining chemical reaction that produces intense heat, flammable and toxic gases and a risk of reignition. The fires burn hotter and faster than typical combustible materials, can reignite hours or even days later, release toxic and hazardous gases, and can be difficult to suppress with water or traditional extinguishing methods.

FCL-X is designed to rapidly suppress thermal runaway reactions and reduce reignition risk, enabling safer handling for on-site personnel.

“Waste operators are facing a growing and costly threat with no effective solution, until now. FCL-X is purpose-built for this challenge and is quickly becoming the new standard in lithium-ion battery fire response,” said Carlos Vicens, CEO of Full Circle Lithium.

Source: Full Circle Lithium

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American Rare Earths accelerates Wyoming pilot plant project

Australia-based American Rare Earths, which operates a US subsidiary called Wyoming Rare, has advanced the pilot plant program for its Halleck Creek Project in Wyoming to produce a high-purity separated rare earth oxide.

The company has signed agreements for initial processing to be done in Wyoming through Western Research Institute in Laramie and DISA Technologies in Casper, followed by a final stage of hydrometallurgical processing and oxide separation at the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) in Saskatoon, Canada.

The pilot plant program has been structured in three stages. The first two stages, milling and sizing followed by mineral separation and concentration, will take place in Wyoming. SRC will handle leaching, impurity removal and oxide refining in the third stage.

This will allow the front end of the pilot plant processing to stay in Wyoming, as it will process ore that has already been extracted from the American Rare Earths Halleck Creek site and stockpiled in Laramie. It will then leverage the downstream facility at SRC to accelerate production, the company said.

The pilot plant will use DISA’s patented high-pressure slurry ablation (HPSA) technology to handle coarser particle sizes and then use the GradePro reflux classifier and induced roll magnetic separators to perform primary mineral separation and secondary concentration.

The SRC facility has a similar process configuration to the type of downstream processing facility American Rare Earths intends to build in Wyoming. The company will use the data generated during the pilot campaign to further develop its plans for the commercial plant and mine.

“The pilot plant and production of pre-production rare earth oxide were previously expected to take several years. This defined pilot pathway now materially shortens the timeline and positions the Company to deliver outcomes within months,” said Mark Wall, CEO of American Rare Earths.

Source: American Rare Earths

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Humble raises $24 million in seed funding to develop an autonomous Class 8 electric truck

Are you ready to share the highways with 80,000-pound trucks that drive themselves? Well, it may take a while, but they’re coming. And all agree that like all autonomous vehicles, they will be electric vehicles.

Autonomous truck startup Humble has emerged from stealth, and announced a prototype of a fully autonomous, cabless electric hauler designed for freight transportation. The company has raised $24 million in seed funding, led by investment firm Eclipse.

The Humble Hauler was designed from the ground up, taking advantage of the latest AV/EV technology. The company has developed a universal platform that supports multiple vehicle configurations. The first vehicle will be built to move shipping containers.

Removing the cab makes the hauler “significantly lighter” than a traditional Class 8 tractor/trailer, and the vehicle’s design enables 360° coverage of its surroundings with camera, LiDAR, and radar, which “allows for true dock-to-dock operation.” The hauler uses vision-language-action (VLA) models that “allow it to reason about the world and take the right action even in scenarios it’s never experienced.”

“For the first time, freight can be fully automated all the way to the loading dock,” said Eyal Cohen, Humble’s founder and CEO. “We are making freight sustainable, safe and efficient, and we’re doing it with an exceptional team of industry veterans and AV experts. Our first vehicle was completed in just six months.”

Humble has completed its first prototype, and is now partnering with logistics and supply chain firms to begin autonomous testing and commercialization pilots. The new funding will support continued development of next-generation vehicles, initial pilot deployments, and early manufacturing.

“Humble is operating at an unprecedented pace,” said Jiten Behl, Partner at Eclipse and Humble board member. “They understand that autonomous trucking isn’t just a software problem—it requires a full-stack rethink across hardware, AI and electrification.”

Source: Humble

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ABB’s new OM M-Series EV chargers: a distributed system that optimizes power delivery

A split is developing in the EVSE world. Industry experts have been telling us that distributed (or split) systems, in which a single power cabinet serves multiple dispensers, represent the wave of the future.

The latest news from splitsville comes from industry behemoth ABB, which has just introduced a new modular, air-cooled split system that “separates the generation from the dispensing of power.”

ABB’s new OM M-Series “enables charging systems to be configured around distinct mission profiles rather than deployed as generic hardware.”

ABB explains: “The M-Series connects centralized power cabinets to a portfolio of purpose-built dispensers: Solo, Duo, Dock and Ultra, supporting CCS1, CCS2, NACS and MCS. This separation enables charging infrastructure to serve distinct customer segments, each with different utilization patterns, dwell times and economic requirements.”

“The industry spent a decade optimizing for nameplate power. What operators need to optimize for now is the cost of energy delivered over the lifetime of a site,” said Michael Halbherr, CEO of ABB E-mobility. “Power only matters if it can be consistently delivered, across vehicle architectures, across charge points and across utilization levels. The M-Series is built to do that.”

The M-Series scales from 200 kW to 1.2 MW, and supports up to 24 charge points. Power capacity can be expanded in the field in 400 kW increments across up to three interconnected cabinets.

“Delivered power, not rated power, is the relevant metric,” ABB tells us. “Different EVs draw power differently, and conventional systems lose capacity in the handover. The M-Series keeps delivered power close to rated capacity, ensuring installed power is consistently utilized. The power delivery unit dynamically distributes capacity across all charge points and vehicle types in real time, matching output to demand patterns.”

The M-Series is built around three site typologies, each with different power requirements, utilization patterns and economic constraints:

• Public fast charging: Sites scale from a single 400 kW cabinet to 1.2 MW across up to 24 charge points in 400 kW increments.
• Retail and hospitality destinations: At supermarkets, fuel retailers and logistics hubs, the system dynamically balances between high-power charging at low utilization and lower-power parallel charging at higher site utilization, maximizing capacity use as demand fluctuates.
• Commercial fleet depots: Operators electrifying mixed van, truck and bus fleets make capital commitments under high uncertainty. The M-Series enables expansion in 400 kW increments, aligning infrastructure cost with actual fleet growth rather than projections. The system supports both high-power opportunity charging and lower-power overnight charging without requiring dedicated infrastructure for each use case.

The M-Series builds on the foundation of ABB’s all-in-one A-Series chargers. Both series are built on the same air-cooled, in-house-developed silicon carbide IP54 power electronics platform and a common reference architecture, commercially deployed since 2024.

Source: ABB

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Sow Good, a candy maker, acquires Tanzania’s Nachu graphite project to pivot battery materials

Sow Good Inc., a Nasdaq-listed freeze-dried candy and snack company, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Nachu Graphite Project in Tanzania in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $107 million. If it closes, the transaction would pivot the company into critical minerals and battery anode materials.

The Nachu Project is an advanced-stage open-pit graphite development located in the Ruangwa District of southern Tanzania, about 220 km by road from the deep-water port of Mtwara. According to Ryzon’s JORC Code 2012 studies—which Sow Good has not independently verified—the project hosts a mineral resource of 174 million tonnes at 5.4% total graphitic carbon (TGC) and an ore reserve of 76 million tonnes at 5.2% TGC. Designed processing capacity is 5 million tonnes per year of run-of-mine ore, yielding approximately 236,000 tonnes per year of graphite concentrate at 98.5–99.0% TGC purity via flotation alone, without chemical purification. Reported mine life is 15.5 years.

The project holds full permits and a Special Economic Zone license in Tanzania but has not commenced construction or production. Ryzon has disclosed a binding offtake agreement with an unnamed US Tier-1 EV and ESS manufacturer; Sow Good says it has not independently verified the terms or current status of that agreement and that re-confirming it will be a priority post-close.

The deal is paid entirely in Sow Good shares, based on a 10-day VWAP of US$0.3209. Closing requires Sow Good shareholder approval, Tanzanian regulatory clearances and other conditions. The company says there is no assurance the transaction completes.

The supply chain backdrop is real. China controls approximately 70% of global natural flake graphite production and more than 95% of spherical and coated graphite anode processing—concentration that IRA Foreign Entity of Concern provisions and the EU Critical Raw Materials Act are specifically designed to reduce. Nachu is positioned as a non-Chinese African source of battery-grade graphite at scale, though it remains years from first production.

“The global battery supply chain is at an inflection point: Western governments and automakers are actively seeking non-Chinese sources of battery-grade graphite, and we believe Nachu is uniquely positioned to meet that demand,” said Sam Goldberg, CEO of Sow Good.

Source: Sow Good Inc.

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