Manganese

Manganese (Mn, atomic number 25) is a hard, brittle, silver-grey metal commonly found alongside iron. Although it is the 12th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, it is classified as a critical raw material due to its essential role in both traditional industry and the energy transition.

Manganese is indispensable to steelmaking and increasingly important in decarbonization technologies, but its supply chain is vulnerable: high-grade ore production and refining is concentrated in a handful of countries, substitute materials are limited, and demand is rising across both traditional industry and decarbonized energy sectors.

The key to manganese’s usefulness is its high reactivity with other elements. In steelmaking, manganese bonds with unwanted oxygen and sulphur, helping to produce stronger, tougher steel. Without the addition of manganese as an alloying agent, steel would be brittle, susceptible to defects, and harder to work with when soft. In practice, modern steelmaking would be difficult to imagine without manganese. Over 90% of global manganese supply is used to make steel.

Its chemical versatility also makes manganese critical in clean technologies, especially in nickel, manganese and cobalt (NMC) batteries. Because it can form stable compounds and support efficient electrochemical reactions, it acts as a structural stabilizer, allowing for longer life cycles of the final battery. It also improves the thermal stability, making the battery safer. As a more abundant and cheaper metal than nickel and cobalt, maximizing the manganese content also helps to improve the cost-effectiveness of EV batteries.

Manganese is also critical for defense applications. High-manganese steel provides exceptional strength for blast-resistant armor plating in vehicles and ships, and serves as an alloying agent in high-stress components for military aircraft and jet engines.