Mixed Hydroxide Precipitate (MHP)
An intermediate nickel-cobalt product made by leaching laterite nickel ore in sulphuric acid, produced mainly in Indonesia and typically shipped to China for further refining into battery-grade nickel sulphate and cobalt sulphate.
Covered in 1 MetalsCost.com News Intelligence article, most recently on August 21, 2026.
Overview
Mixed hydroxide precipitate, universally shortened to MHP, is an intermediate nickel-cobalt product — a damp, semi-refined hydroxide paste containing roughly 30%-45% nickel along with several percent cobalt — produced by chemically leaching low-grade laterite nickel ore. It emerged as a major commercial product only in the past several years, mainly out of Indonesia, as a way to make laterite ore, previously used almost exclusively for stainless steel via a different process, usable as battery feedstock instead.
How It's Manufactured
MHP is made through high-pressure acid leaching, or HPAL: laterite ore is mixed with sulphuric acid and processed in pressurized autoclaves at high temperature, dissolving the nickel and cobalt out of the ore into solution while leaving most of the iron and waste minerals behind. The resulting nickel-cobalt solution is then neutralized, typically with lime or limestone, which precipitates the nickel and cobalt out together as a mixed hydroxide — hence the name — leaving a damp cake that's filtered, partially dried and shipped, usually to China, for further refining into separate battery-grade nickel sulphate and cobalt sulphate.
Byproducts
HPAL processing generates large volumes of leach residue, mainly iron compounds along with unreacted waste rock, typically stored as a slurry in tailings or residue storage facilities — this residue handling is one of the most environmentally scrutinized parts of the HPAL process, given the volumes involved and the acidic, metal-bearing nature of the material. Some HPAL operations have explored recovering the iron residue for other uses, such as ironmaking feedstock, but at commercial scale most of it remains a waste stream to be safely and permanently stored rather than a sold byproduct.
Who Consumes It
MHP's buyers are almost entirely battery-material refiners, concentrated in China, that convert it into nickel sulphate and cobalt sulphate for lithium-ion battery cathode production, particularly the nickel-rich NMC and NCA chemistries used in higher-range electric vehicles. Indonesia's HPAL plants, many built through joint ventures with Chinese nickel and battery companies, produce the large majority of the world's MHP, making Indonesia-to-China MHP shipments one of the key supply lines feeding the global EV battery industry's nickel and cobalt needs.
Everyday Uses
Anyone driving an EV with a nickel-rich NMC or NCA battery pack is indirectly relying on MHP or a similar intermediate nickel product somewhere upstream in that battery's supply chain, since HPAL-derived MHP has become one of the main new sources of battery-grade nickel over the past several years. Beyond that connection, MHP is a purely industrial intermediate with no direct consumer-facing form or use of its own.
Industrial Uses
MHP's core industrial significance is that it unlocked a huge new source of battery-grade nickel and cobalt from laterite ore deposits, mainly in Indonesia, that were previously valuable only for lower-grade nickel pig iron and stainless-steel production. That shift has materially changed global nickel market dynamics, since it added a large new stream of nickel supply specifically aimed at the battery sector rather than the stainless-steel sector that has traditionally consumed most of the world's nickel, and it's part of why nickel pricing increasingly has to account for two somewhat separate demand pools — batteries and stainless steel — rather than one unified market.
