1. Introduction. Manganese (Mn) is an off-white, hard, brittle, lustrous transition metal with a Mohs hardness of 6, a density of 7.44 g/cm 3, a melting point of 1244 °C and a boiling point of 1962 °C (Xing et al., 2014).Manganese metal and its alloys find wide application in the iron and steel industry, building materials, lightweight materials, …