Dorfner ANZAPLAN GmbH (Germany) and its Toronto-based mining consultancy joint venture company, M.Plan, have been engaged by Imperial Mining Group Ltd. ("Imperial") (TSX VENTURE: IPG) to undertake hydrometallurgical (Phase III) testwork program on the Crater Lake Project scandium mineralization (see Press Release: July 28, 2020).
The Phase II scandium (Sc) metallurgical test program was completed by ANZAPLAN on two 100 kg bulk samples collected from TG Zone diamond drill core, representing the two mineralization types encountered this past winter. ANZAPLAN’S testwork reveals encouraging scandium recoveries (see Press Release: March 2, 2020).
The Phase III program will then confirm, at the bench-scale, a hydrometallurgical process flowsheet for cost-effective extraction of scandium as 99.5% pure scandium oxide and recovery of a mixed rare earth oxide co-product. This involves dissolving the concentrates in an acidic solution to generate a pregnant leach solution (PLS) from which the contained scandium and the rare earths (“REE”) will then be extracted. In addition, the work program will look at the amenability of Crater Lake mineralization to acid soak/water leach or heap leaching techniques in solubilizing scandium and REE with the main objective of reducing reagent (acid) cost while optimizing payable metals recovery (see Press Release: July 28, 2020).
“We believe these next metallurgical development steps will allow us to design an efficient extraction process for this unique scandium deposit environment.” said Dr. Yemi
ANZAPLAN is proud to have been selected as the process development partner for the Phase III hydrometallurgical flowsheet development for the extraction of scandium suitable to produce scandium alloys.
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