| Abstract Scope |
The United States has not produced primary magnesium metal at scale since 2021, leaving the automotive, aerospace, and defense industries that depend on it exposed to a supply chain concentrated almost entirely in one country. Atlas Materials has spent five years developing a hydrometallurgical route — the Atlas Process — that converts imported nickel saprolite ore into primary magnesium metal alongside three additional saleable co-products, with no solid waste stream. The process integrates three demonstrated steps: hydrometallurgical leaching of saprolite ore to recover a nickel-cobalt mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP) and a high-purity magnesium chloride brine; pyrohydrolysis of that brine to high-purity magnesium oxide with in-process regeneration of hydrochloric acid; and aluminothermic reduction of the magnesium oxide to primary magnesium metal. Each step has been piloted independently — hydrometallurgy for more than 1,000 continuous hours, pyrohydrolysis at Andritz (Austria), and aluminothermic reduction at Big Blue Technologies (Wyoming, USA) — and the full ore-to-metal chain has been demonstrated at pilot scale. A first commercial plant is designed to process 100,000 t/yr of imported saprolite, 34,000 t/yr of olivine mineral, 18,000 t/yr scrap aluminum, and 33,000 t/yr CaO into 23,000 t/yr of magnesium metal, 3,300 t/yr of Ni/Co MHP, 82,000 t/yr of supplementary cementitious silica, and 67,000 t/yr of an aluminothermic co-product. The company is advancing engineering and financing toward a construction decision. |