RENO, NV--(Marketwired - November 01, 2016) - Itronics Inc. (OTC PINK: ITRO), a growing and diversified fertilizer, silver, and minerals producer, today announced that it has completed installation of a five times larger leach reactor system for its clean tech leaching technology pilot plant. The pilot plant processes internally generated low grade silver concentrates to recover raw materials for GOLD'n GRO fertilizer manufacturing and produces a high grade silver concentrate for its silver refinery.

This leaching technology is a "zero waste" process because all of the feed material is converted to useable products. This technology is both 'cost reducing' and 'energy saving' and is environmentally "green" because it recovers materials for sale that were previously wasted, maximizing sustainability. This remarkable technology is expected to significantly enhance the Company's profitability.

Over the past year significant improvements in process efficiency have been achieved. About 90 percent, or about 90 pounds out of each 100 pounds of the feed material to the leaching process, is now being recovered in a form that can be incorporated as raw material in the manufacture of the GOLD'n GRO fertilizers. The 10 percent solid residual that remains is a high grade silver concentrate that contains all of the silver that was in the starting material.

Completion of the expanded pilot leach plant removes a major bottleneck for leaching the Company's internally generated silver concentrates and provides excess capacity to accommodate expected growth in processing spent silver-bearing photographic liquids to support expanding GOLD'n GRO fertilizer sales and initiation of KAM-Thio sales.

The Company has an inventory of silver concentrates available for leaching, and silver concentrates are being produced by on-going operations. These concentrates will be processed through the expanded pilot plant to produce raw materials for GOLD'n GRO fertilizer manufacturing and high grade silver concentrate for the Company's refining operation.

The Company anticipates that it will be able to use this pilot leaching technology for testing zinc removal from zinc-bearing flue dusts for use in manufacturing GOLD'n GRO fertilizers and other commercial products. This technology may also be useable for testing the recovery of nutrient materials and production of metal concentrates from certain types of silver batteries and from non-rechargeable alkaline battery scrap.

The Company plans to operate this pilot scale leaching plant to develop operating and engineering parameters that can be used to design pilot plant circuits for other types of materials and a commercial plant for processing silver concentrates.

The Company is continuing its e-waste refining study, and will be publishing a progress report in the near future. The Company plans to begin field application development of its KAM-Thio technology as its next major expansion project. The Company is also having discussions with interested parties for joint venture development of its mineral property, the Auric Fulstone Project in Nevada.

Itronic's innovative research and development team is continuing to use its chemical science and engineering skills to develop new approaches to extract valuable metals and materials from different liquid and solid waste streams for purposes of returning them to productive use. Itronics' goal for its zero waste technologies is "cost reducing" and "energy saving" and to create new business opportunities. Itronics maintains the R & D capability to take a concept from small scale bench testing to pilot plant scale-up and on to commercial operation. This approach maximizes the likelihood of success and provides a thoroughly tested basis for engineering design for commercial scale operations for the developed technology.

About Itronics

Headquartered in Reno, Nevada, Itronics Inc. is a "Creative Green Technology" Company which produces GOLD'n GRO specialty liquid fertilizers and silver bullion. It owns a large Iron Oxide Copper Gold (IOCG) mineral property (the Auric Fulstone Project) in the prolific Yerington Copper Mining District in northwestern Nevada. Within the Auric Fulstone project area, the Company has discovered surface high grade silver, zinc, and lead mineralization that contains anomalous molybdenum in a large area that is geochemically anomalous for zinc. It has also discovered high grade copper mineralization that contains anomalous gold and molybdenum in a separate area that is anomalous for copper. The Company's goal is to achieve profitable clean technology driven growth in specialty GOLD'n GRO fertilizers, silver, zinc, and minerals. The Company's technologies maximize the recovery and use of metals and minerals and by doing this maximize sustainability.

Through its subsidiary, Itronics Metallurgical, Inc., Itronics is the only company with a fully permitted "Beneficial Use Photochemical, Silver, and Water Recycling" plant in the United States that converts 100 percent of the spent photoliquids into silver bullion, silver bearing glass, and GOLD'n GRO liquid fertilizers. The Company is developing environmentally compatible waste processing and mining technology. Itronics has received numerous domestic and international awards that recognize its ability to successfully use science and engineering to create and implement new environmentally clean "zero waste" recycling and fertilizer technologies.

The Company's environmentally friendly GOLD'n GRO liquid fertilizers, which are extensively used in agriculture, can be used for lawns and houseplants, and are available at the Company's "e-store" on Amazon.Com at: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_sr_lawn-garden?ie+UTF8&field-brandtextbin=GOLD%27n+GRO&node=2972638011.

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("Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This press release contains or may contain forward-looking statements such as statements regarding the Company's growth and profitability, growth strategy, liquidity and access to public markets, operating expense reduction, and trends in the industry in which the Company operates. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also subject to other risks and uncertainties, including those more fully described in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changes in risks, uncertainties or assumptions underlying or affecting such statements, or for prospective events that may have a retroactive effect.)