By: AllPennyStocks.com News

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

There’s been much ado over lithium ion batteries in recent years. Heralded by many as the wave of the future of automobiles in addition to countless other uses by consumers and industry, the technology has gotten a bad rep for catching fire in the past and now again. Late in 2011, the U.S. government began investigating General Motors Co.’s (NYSE:GM) Chevy Volt following a lithium ion battery catching fire after a government crash test. The government concluded that the problem was not with GM’s batteries, but in their testing procedure. In the automobile space, GM isn’t alone as Fisker Automotive has been a topic of conversation for their $100,000+ Karma hybrid bursting into flames on more than one occasion. Investigations related to Karmas are ongoing. Now U.S. regulators, as well as Japan’s government, is probing Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA) for faults in lithium ion battery packs in their new 787 Dreamliners that have caught fire recently, resulting in the acclaimed planes being grounded across the globe while investigators collect information.

So what does this have to do with small-cap companies, one may ask? Well, the electric battery industry has had some trouble growing the long legs that most analysts expected it to in a short period of time a decade ago. The bad press about the fires isn’t coming at the best of times as the auto industry is putting together a notable push to bolster sales. The stigma that could be attached to lithium ion batteries could have an unjustifiable impact on some juniors looking to emerge in the space.

It’s not just carmakers of parts suppliers that could be impacted by the negative undertones swirling with all the prattle about Boeing. Don’t forget that someone has to mine the metals as well and that supply chains can have many avenues that consumers and investors often ignore.

This logic seemed to inspire Larry W. Reaugh, Chief Executive Officer of Vancouver-based American Manganese Inc. (TSX-Venture:AMY) (Pink Sheets:AMYZF) to speak out and add some clarity to the situation in a corporate statement on Tuesday. A mining company, American Manganese is also in the business of producing high purity Electrolytic Manganese Dioxide (EMD) or Chemical Manganese Dioxide (CMD) for the rechargeable lithium manganese battery industry utilizing their patent pending process.

CEO of American Manganese Inc., Mr. Reaugh cited sources, namely the Green Car Report, Bloomberg Business Week and Kemetco Research Inc., to explain the difference between technologies using a lithium/cobalt mixture and other technologies using a lithium/manganese (and/or iron and other metals) to create rechargeable batteries that all get lumped under the same head of “lithium ion batteries.”

Simply, lithium ion batteries using cobalt may have some greater benefits – such as more energy per volume – but they also have a greater risk of catching fire than those using manganese. The Boeing planes utilized batteries comprised of the lithium/cobalt mixture. Apropos, the Chevy Volt uses Lithium Manganese Dioxide battery technology.

Taking it further, the statement released by American Manganese quoted Norm Chow, P.Eng, President and CEO of Kemetco, a privately-held, contract Research & Development company. According to Chow, researchers often overlook “the importance of mining processes to produce raw materials which are later refined to battery grade materials. A critical issue is that conventional mining processes introduce metallic impurities in raw materials. These metallic impurities are known to cause internal short circuits resulting in thermal run-away, which by-passes protection circuits implemented for safety.”

“This unfortunately leads to explosions and fires in some cases,” said Chow.

American Manganese has developed prototype batteries using their technology that avoids steps in production that are known to introduce metallic impurities. The company is currently advancing their R&D to the next stage.

This type of news isn’t generally market moving but it did give a slight pop in the case of American Manganese yesterday. Canadian-listed shares were up 11% to 5 cents on the news. Shares have more than doubled off 2 cent-lows in December. Proper due diligence on American Manganese and the lithium ion battery industry in general is, as always, encouraged.

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