Far as we are told MB have no IP rights they are funding the R&D...

Far as we are told MB have no IP rights they are funding the R&D plants with a view to entering into a licence agreement should they proceed to commercial scale once tech fully proven.
There we two parts to the recycling, first the spoke plant to create black mass, NMT already needed to tweak this process due to legislation requiring higher recovery rates, it’s this part I think may need tweaking depending on who’s batteries are to be recycled.
The Hub is the hydromet ( chemical process ) you mention and it may be able to process differing black mass mix without tweaking, though I’d imagine it may work best using a consistent black mass feed stock but I’m no expert.
Past smaller scale tests show recovery rates for combined process achieving those set by new legislation and purity being better that that used to creat the Origional battery.
Don’t think we can downplay MB choosing our tech over all others, we’ve just opened the spoke plant with Hub under construction, if tech works at this larger scale then MB have to decide do the run with out proven tech to commercial scale or go start again with something else, like to think it’s the former but see how it plays, Loop.