Neometals Ltd has announced that it will allow the option to acquire an 80% equity interest in US business, Precious Metals Recovery, LLC (PMR), to expire on 31 August 2024. The decision comes after the company's due diligence process did not provide sufficient confidence in the technical feasibility or economic viability of PMR's proprietary technology. Neometals had been evaluating the acquisition of a majority stake in a proprietary precious recovery process and associated processing plant, targeting the recovery of precious metals from industrial waste streams. This potential acquisition was in line with Neometals' focus on commercializing processes that produce critical materials from recycling and recovery from waste streams. However, the company's technical and financial due diligence process, which included running thirty +100kg-size batch trials through the PMR Pilot and generating a preliminary cost estimation, revealed highly variable batch trial results that were not able to be definitively explained, and operating costs were higher than expected.