Perpetual Resources Ltd (ASX:PEC) has completed petrographic and photomicrograph analysis on the flagship Beharra Project’s silica sand, which has continued to demonstrate a low-impurity and high-quality profile suitable for multiple potential end products.
The company has gained a greater understanding of the impurities held within Beharra silica sand, including their nature and location, offering material insights into the mineralogical residences and form of impurities.
Quartz grain with tiny acicular rutile inclusions. Field of view 1 millimetre across.
Perpetual says these tests have provided further confirmation and a deeper understanding of the remaining impurities in Beharra silica sand, a necessity for future offtake discussions.
Details of analysis
Two high purity processed silica sand samples from the Beharra silica sand project were submitted to the Paul Ashley Petrographic and Geological Services, in Armidale NSW, for detailed mineralogical examination.
The samples represented end products from laboratory processing of Beharra’s upper white and lower white bulk samples.
Analyses by Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) were provided, indicating that although both samples had high silica (SiO2) values (99.6% and 99.7% respectively), they also contained values of:
- aluminium oxide (Al2O3) (2278 and 1234 parts per million [ppm] respectively);
- iron oxide (Fe2O3) (177 and 189 ppm respectively);
- titanium oxide (TiO2) (306 and 369 ppm respectively); and
- potassium oxide (K2O) (621 and 75 ppm respectively).