Australian Vanadium Ltd (ASX:AVL) tests have confirmed that the Gabanintha project can supply high-quality vanadium products to meet the needs of energy storage and steel-making customers.
The company has completed the latest round of metallurgical test work for high-grade vanadium ore from the project in Western Australia.
Magnetic separation tests have delivered high-yield into primary concentrates.
The first stage of detailed comminution test work has allowed the determination of energy requirements to prepare a consistent-sized ore for later processing in any operations.
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Vincent Algar, managing director, said: “The definitive work to date is providing us with great confidence that Gabanintha can produce a significant quantity and quality of vanadium concentrate to feed a conventional vanadium roast-leach process.
“We will continue to optimise the recovery to achieve the simplest possible flowsheet to take to our PFS.
“With increasing market demand for vanadium, AVL will be accelerating its development activities to bring vanadium products to the market as soon as possible.”
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Magnetic tests demonstrated that fresh high-grade material achieved concentrate recovery of 92.3% vanadium in a 1.42% vanadium pentoxide concentrate with very low silica content, before optimisation.
The transitional high-grade material achieved combined concentrate recovery of 89.2% of vanadium in a 1.4% concentrate, before optimisation.
Transitional concentrate grades of up to 1.72% vanadium pentoxide were achieved, indicating significant upside across the deposit.
Further work is underway to optimise concentrate grade and lower silica and alumina in transition and fresh feed material.
A number of opportunities have been identified to further enhance the concentrate quality and these are being tested in the laboratory.
Consistent energy consumption established
Comminution test work established a consistent energy consumption of 6.9 kWh/t was needed to break material in an AG/SAG milling scenario with a closing screen size of 2.8mm.
Density correlation strongly supports the use of regressed density with iron grade in magnetite.
An average density of 3.6 is applicable to oxide, transition and fresh high-grade materials.
Abrasion index work indicates that ore is only ‘slightly abrasive’, indicating modest wear of comminution equipment.
New test work underway
Algar said: “New test work is already underway to further optimise the work with a view to simplifying the process flowsheet which will form part of the upcoming PFS on the concentrate plant.
“The optimisation of feed quality and yield has significant implications for downstream project economics by ensuring the lowest use of water, reagents and power.
“The objective is for Gabanintha to provide the highest quality processing feed possible from the entire high-grade ore body via the simplest circuit design.”
Large resource at Gabanintha
Gabanintha, which is near Meekatharra, hosts a measured resource of 10.2 million tonnes at 1.06% vanadium pentoxide, an indicated resource of 25.4 million tonnes at 0.62% and an inferred resource of 144 million tonnes at 0.75%.
Within this is a distinct and globally significant, massive magnetite high-grade zone of 92.8 million tonnes at 0.96% vanadium pentoxide.