Canada Silver Cobalt Works Inc (CVE:CCW) (OTCMKTS:CCWOF) (FRA:4T9B) said preliminary bench-scale testing involving its proprietary hydrometallurgical Re-2Ox process has "yielded excellent results".
Work so far has produced a first concentrate to then be processed using its proprietary process into a direct end-product for electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing, the company said.
READ: Canada Silver Cobalt Works announces start of battery recycling tests using proprietary hydrometallurgical Re-2Ox process
The Re-2Ox process is the only known hydrometallurgical process purposely designed and adaptable to recover and recycle metals from lithium-ion, nickel-hydride and nickel-cadmium batteries.
The initial test work was carried out on 50 kilograms of tailings from drill samples from the firm's Beaver mine in the Gowganda silver district of northern Ontario.
"The core of the ability to meet EV battery manufacturers' needs, is a metallurgical process that can treat primary feeds and secondary feeds equally well into final end-user products," said Frank Basa, CEO at Canada Silver Cobalt Works.
"As the company has already produced cobalt sulfate from hard rock mineralized primary feed from the Castle mine it is now working on using the Re-2Ox process on tailings from the Cobalt camp and secondary feeds from spent batteries into final end-user products."
The company said first stage, flotation test rougher concentrate grades came in at 2,559 grams per tonne (g/t) silver, 0.28% cobalt and 0.072% nickel, while there were "excellent" preliminary, first stage flotation test rougher concentrate recoveries of 61% silver, 43% for cobalt and 21% for nickel.
The overall test program is expected to take six months from bench-scale to pilot plant for the Stage I program.
The program is designed to produce concentrates from hard rock mineralized material from the Castle Mine and from tailings from the Castle and Beaver mines, and to process spent Li-ion, Nickel Cadmium, Nickel Hydride batteries using the Re-2Ox process.
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