Surefire Resources NL (ASX:SRN) has further improved the recovery of vanadium in a second phase of laboratory test work on magnetite concentrate from the Victory Bore Vanadium Project in Western Australia.
The company said testing of its leach process for vanadium extraction on pre-treated magnetite concentrate (PTMC) had “dramatically improved” recovery to 97% in a much-shortened leach time of just 24 hours.
No roasting
Importantly, the follow-up test-work confirms that the metallurgical conditions require no high pressure or high temperatures (roasting) of the pre-treated magnetite.
The fact that roasting is no longer required is significant for future processing with a significantly reduced carbon footprint as well as reduced opex and capex.
Follow-up tests
Surefire conducted the second phase of tests on the same sample material to follow up previous test-work that achieved 91% vanadium extraction and 88% titanium extraction after an extended leach time of 96 hours, with these results described as “remarkable”.
Achieving 97% recovery of vanadium after only 24 hours was achieved by further optimising the pre-leach and leach conditions, which are part of the proprietary nature of the process. No heat treatment or roasting of the concentrate has been applied or was required.
Although titanium recovery of 27% was lower than the 88% achieved originally, Surefire said it would appear that further leaching time would achieve 98% recovery of titanium.
Reduced costs
While additional test-work will be required in the next stages leading to pilot plant testing, the fact that roasting of the concentrate is not required is significant for future processing implications.
No roasting will mean that a kiln used in traditional current vanadium extraction methods will not be required resulting in a much reduced or zero carbon footprint as well as much reduced capex.
It will also mean much-reduced operating costs (opex) as the power required for the traditional kiln to operate at very high temperatures will not be required.
Ongoing work
Surefire will continue to assess the benefits in using the process for the downstream process flow sheet with possible reductions in capital and operating costs, and will also assess the potential to licence the process for use on other vanadium resources.
The production of metals from the leach solution is a well-understood solvent extraction process and will be included in the scale-up test-work to analyse product purity and establish grades.
This confirmatory work follows Surefire’s announcement of a breakthrough process for vanadium extraction and the completion of a pre-feasibility study on the Victory Bore deposit which showed a robust financial outcome with an NPV10 A$1.7 billion, IRR of 42%, pay back of 2.4 years and initial mine life of 24 years.
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It also follows the recent signing of an MoU with Saudi Arabian-based Ajlan & Bros Mining and Metal group for downstream processing of magnetite concentrate in Saudi Arabia, which forms part of the development plan for the project.
Main image: Magnetite concentrate undergoing tests.