MTM Critical Metals investors have a big year ahead of them!

MTM Critical Metals investors have an action-packed 2025 in front of them. Full-scale production of its Flash Joule Heating (FJH) technology is a few years away, but the company is expected to make major strides in the years ahead.

Recap of MTM Critical Metals and its FJH technology

In December 2023, MTM Critical Metals took a license of an FJH technology from Rice University. At the time, the company was a rare-earths focused explorer and saw the potential it could make to the rare earths recycling process.

FJH involves the creation of thermal energy through the collision of electrons in a conductor, at a ‘flash pace’. MTM’s FJH can create heat almost instantaneously and reach temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees celsius. And it can recover a greater proportion of metals while using less energy, less time, emitting less emissions and achieving a higher yield.

At this point you might think it sounds good, but why can’t we just find new mineral deposits? Well, as goes without saying, it takes a lot of time and a lot of money. And more importantly, some jurisdictions, particularly the EU, are beginning to mandate the recycling of metals. And so methods of recycling like FJH that can speed up the process and do with a lower carbon footprint will be important.

MTM has re-rated significantly in the last 12 months, particularly off the back of testing results – because they just get better and better. The most recent were unveiled earlier in January 2025. In the particular test process, a single carbo-chlorination flash converted 93% of REEs into high-purity, water-soluble chlorides.

All 17 REEs were chlorinated, underscoring the robustness of the process. A final high-purity REE-chloride product was produced. Furthermore, it also demonstrated very high impurity removal rates of key deleterious elements including iron (92%) and aluminium (96%).

For more details on the company, its technology and applications…check out the research reports written by our friends at Pitt Street Research, the most recent of which was published earlier this week.

What MTM Critical Metals investors have to look forward to in 2025

The company is working a demonstration plant which will be based in Texas. MTM has promised shareholders that it is on track for design completion in February. Thereafter, procurement, construction and commissioning will follow. This is the main thing to look forward to.

MTM is pursuing a 3-pronged strategy to commercialisation involving optimisation of the technology, scaling up testing (towards pilot-scale trials) and pursuing collaborations with industry stakeholders. Testing programs to further validate FJH will continue, particularly across rare earths, lithium and e-waste. And finally, the company will continue to pursue partnerships – we expect the Indium collaboration to be the tip of the iceberg. We expect interest from metal suppliers, future off-take partners as well as from potential sources of non-dilutive funding.

MTM is looking to undertake a listing in the US via over-the-counter (OTC) markets, a move that will expose the company to a broader range of investors. Although the company’s management has not given a specific time frame, this is expected to occur in 2025.

There’s a lot of upside left

Even though MTM is capitalised at over $120m, more than double what it was just 3 months ago, there is still upside left if the company can successfully achieve its objectives. It has multiple peers trading at over A$1bn including Alpha HPA (ASX:A4N), Silex Systems (ASX:SLX) and IperionX (ASX:IPX). Although these companies are well ahead of MTM in being in commercial production or closer to it, we think the gap could narrow over the next couple of years.

MTM is a research client of Pitt Street Research. Pitt Street staff own shares in MTM. 

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