The $60B Opportunity

https://stocksdownunder.com/mtm-cri...s Down Under Investor Newsletter 25 July 2025



MTM Critical Metals has changed its name to Metallium, but its just as exciting as it was before!
Nick Sundich, July 22, 2025


Effective as of this morning (July 22, 2025), MTM Critical Metals has changed its name to Metallium. This reflects how the company has pivoted from a critical metals explorer to a company commercialising a game-changing metals recycling technology.

Metallium’s shares have surged from as low as 2.4c in the 2nd half of last year to 81.5c in mid-July 2025, capping it at over $420m.

We all know why this has occurred. It is because Metallium has made legitimate progress. Investors not only see FJH’s potential to help metals recycling, but the role it could play in helping its customers bypass the worst of Trump’s tariffs.

But what happens next?



Recap of Metallium and FJH
FJH (Flash Joule Heating) creates thermal energy through the collision of electrons in a conductor, at a ‘flash pace’. Metallium’s FJH can create heat almost instantaneously and reach temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees celsius. It not only vaporising metals and recovers them, but recovers a high quantity of them and does so with less emissions and time – just to name a couple of the many costs saved.

Metals recycling today tends to be some form of incineration or using industrial sludges. They tend to be expensive, time-consuming, energy-intensive and non-selective (i.e. they do not just remove the metal of interest but take out all the metals as well). Metallium’s FJH Technology overcomes these problems

Since Metallium licensed the technology, the company has shown it can be reproduced at scale – at 50 times the original concept. It can impact several metals including battery metals like lithium and various REEs (Rare Earth Elements). By impact, we mean more of the metal can be recovered.



It gets better and better…
…with every round of testing.

Metallium’s most recent testing results were revealed to shareholders in early April 2025, conducted on Printed Circuit Board Feedstock (from end-of-life electronics), and depicted over 95% recovery for gold & titanium and over 90% for silver, tin and zinc.

And most recently, the company revealed in June 2025 that it could achieve a 98% recovery of high-grade antimony from American e-waste with a grade of over 3%. Conventional technologies struggle to surpass 1% grade antimony with most coming below that – even using antimony from some of the world’s largest known deposits.



Why 2025 has been a big year
The company’s key focus has been to build a pilot plant and complete it by the end of the year. So far it has completed the process design including key process parameters and found a site on the outskirts of Houston to host it.

Crucially, the property already has industrial waste processing permits, so Metallium will be able to begin without length environmental approvals. The facility will have a focus on high-value critical metals from industrial waste and electronic scrap, including gallium, germanium, indium and gold. Down the track, it’ll be able to scale up capacity and could co-locate allied processing activities or shared infrastructure.




MTM’s demonstration plant site (Source: Company)



Metallium hopes to finalise the lease and begin on-site works in Q3 of 2025 and to commission the 1tpd demonstration plant in December 2025. Following this, Metallium will initiate staged operations and product qualification with early offtake partners.

Beyond preparation for the pilot plant, the company will continue its R&D work, particularly with respect to antimony in light of the company’s discovery earlier in June that its FJH could aid with the recovery of antimony. It will engage with US government agencies, industrial end-users and critical metals stakeholders focusing on securing domestic sources of strategic metals. The company has told investors it is in discussions with >10 additional companies across the mining, recycling and processing sectors. Even though it may be a few months until the pilot plant is underway, this shows there will be constant news flow for investors to digest in the coming months.



2026 will be a bigger year
Once the pilot plant is done, plans to build a commercial-scale business based around the operating model of the Pilot Plant. It will have 2 core business units.

The first will be Urban Mining which will consist of recycling technology metals and electronic waste from partners such as Indium and Dynamic. Metallium will purchase feedstock, own and operate the processing facility and retain full economic interest in the recovered metals. Metallium has estimated that it has a US$60bn market (US$20bn in Technology Metals and US$40bn in Electronic waste).

The second will be Mineral Processing where it will partner with miners or mineral processing plant owners by supplying equipment and services and monetising technology via licensing fees and production royalties. In this segment, Metallium is developing partnerships with Vedanta and Meteoric Resources and plans on further partnerships in the REE, Lithium, Antimony and Red Mud Spaces. It estimates a US$13bn market for REEs and a US$15bn with Red Mud.

Metallium will focus on high-value waste streams that will enable profitability even with an operation of just 1-10 tonnes per day. Specifically, it will target gallium, germanium and indium rich waste, as well as gold/copper-rich electronic waste (particularly Printed Circuit Boards).

Once the pilot plant has been proven, it will seek to build up to a commercial scale, and to establish sites in further US states. It has short-listed Louisiana, Florida, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia as shortlisted states for future sites. Future sites will be close to major e-waste aggregators and strategic partners and will have logistical access to regional industrial corridors. There will have some fixed infrastructure at the sites, but the company will also possess mobile modular units for regional flexibility.



More upside left for the company
No one can deny Metallium has been on a stellar run in the last 12 months. But there could be even more to come. Our friends at Pitt Street Research have valued Metallium at at $850m or $1.50 per share in a base case or $1,105m or $1.96 in an optimistic case. These figures are 50% and 65% of peer Iperion (ASX:IPX) that has a commercial-scale operation.

If Metallium continues to hit all of its milestones, we see no reason why it cannot continue to grow