Metallium (ASX: MTM) Restarts Texas Testing as First Revenue Arrives

Metallium Limited is set to restart chlorinated testing at its Gator Point campus in Texas after resolving a site-boundary issue that had delayed work on its metals-recovery technology.

The company also began receiving the first US$500,000 payment from ECT under a separate engineering services and MXene development program, with the balance expected by the end of the week.

The two developments move forward parallel programs at Gator Point: one focused on scaling Metallium’s Flash Joule Heating technology for metals recovery, and another assessing whether the same reactor platform can be adapted to manufacture advanced MXene materials.

Site Constraint Resolved

Metallium received approval for pilot-scale chlorination work in December 2025. However, remediation work on the roof at Gator Point forced the company to move its test reactors closer to the northern boundary of the site.

That relocation created a permitting problem.

A subsequent review found the new reactor position did not provide sufficient separation from the property boundary and the nearest public receptor, preventing chlorinated testing from proceeding as planned.

Metallium worked with Chambers County Landfill and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to resolve the issue.

On August 25, the company secured additional land immediately north of the campus from Chambers County for nominal consideration of US$1.

In return, Metallium will receive the county’s electronic scrap for processing through its planned IT asset disposition centre.

The additional land restores the required buffer around the test area and allows commissioning and chlorinated testing to resume in buildings 706, 707 and 708.

Testing is expected to restart this week, followed by an approximately two-week ramp-up.

“With the site constraint now resolved, we can recommence chlorinated testing and continue progressing the FJH platform toward commercialisation,” Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Michael Walshe said.

September Test Campaign Becomes the Next Milestone

The immediate focus is now a planned 12-hour, multi-reactor chlorinated campaign in September.

The work, scheduled for building 706, is designed to generate operating, process and environmental data across multiple reactors running for an extended period.

Metallium will use the results to refine reactor settings and configuration while also gathering information needed for air-dispersion modelling and environmental assessment.

Those datasets will be important in supporting the longer-lead permits required for the next stage of development.

Chlorination is central to Metallium’s proposed metals-recovery process. Chlorine reacts with targeted metals during treatment, producing compounds that can then be selectively separated and recovered.

The company has previously demonstrated the approach across feedstocks containing gallium, germanium and rare earth elements.

MXene Program Adds a Second Commercial Pathway

Alongside the metals-recovery work, Metallium has begun receiving ECT’s first US$500,000 payment in instalments, with the staggered transfers attributed to daily banking limits.

Preparations are also underway for ECT’s testing campaign at Gator Point.

That program will examine whether Metallium’s reactor technology can be used to produce MXenes, a class of two-dimensional materials being studied for applications including energy storage, electronics, sensors and advanced coatings.

Metallium is installing X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analysis equipment at its on-site laboratory, which should allow test results to be assessed more quickly and fed back into reactor optimisation.

Why This Matters

For Metallium, the significance of the latest update is less the US$1 land transaction than what it unlocks.

The permitting issue had become a practical bottleneck in proving the technology at longer duration and larger scale. With testing now able to restart, September’s campaign should provide a clearer indication of how the process performs beyond short-duration demonstrations.

At the same time, the ECT program gives Metallium a second potential commercial application for its reactor platform.

The next test is whether those technical programs can translate into repeatable operating data, larger-scale permitting and ultimately commercial deployment.