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The agreement gives Tivan an exclusive 20-year worldwide licence, except in India, for use of the CSIRO’s intellectual property to recover vanadium — a steel-strengthening additive that’s increasingly being used in batteries.

The deal is “a major milestone in progressing the board’s longer-term vision of delivering a Tivan processing facility for downstream processing of mineral concentrate produced from Tivan’s 100% owned Speewah vanadium-titanium-iron project” in Western Australia, the Perth-based company said in a statement to the Australian stock exchange on Tuesday.

Tivan and CSIRO will build a pilot plant project “as a precursor to future full-scale commercialization of the technology,” said Tivan, which has a market value of A$119 million ($76 million). CSIRO has developed and patented a novel mineral process to recover vanadium, titanium and iron in the form of their oxides from vanadiferous titanomagnetite and ilmenite concentrates, it said.

“The technology is a vital piece in the puzzle in Australia’s renewable energy future and it will deliver long term community benefit, boosting the economy and supporting more jobs and opportunities for Australians,” CSIRO chief executive officer Doug Hilton said in the statement.