So
So a bit of an update. I spoke with the managing director after my post as suggested and i'll provide a fairly high level summary of the notable points of discussion.
If nothing else, what I will say is that I was impressed by his maturity on the subjects. What I mean by this is he didn't pretend to know everything nor was anything said that would typically be a red flag. I mention this as over the last 24 months i've called around 15 companies to speak about their projects and i'm either left thinking that they are either deliberately doing the wrong thing, or aren't sure what to do but won't ask for help.
I asked for a rundown of the status quo of the project and the data to date. Aligned fairly well to what my assessment was. Nothing too indifferent from what's presented. My instant probe was on what type of test work they were doing and secondly how were the samples taken. 8/10 for response.
They're engaging the right teams for the testwork and have reached out to the right individuals. Secondly the testwork will include sodium chloride, magnesium sulphate. I mentioned ammonium sulphate as the other option. If it's ionic in nature then it liberates under a cation exchange. This is what it means to be ionic adsorbed. Secondly, it's a composite samples - tick. Seen many companies cherry pick 50 holes and test them all seperately - then release the 1 that has minor ionic portion and claim the deposit is ionic. Well no, only the 1 sample from the 1 drill hole. So I commend the team on a the testwork they are performing and the fact it's an analogous sample IMO.
I gave them some tidbits of info in regards to other thing to look for and things that didn't quite lead me to believe they'd hit the jackpot but indicated that my observations were based on what I observed in my experience in both paid and unpaid manners.
My recommendation would be looking for 2 keys bits of information. The recoveries and concentration of the REO solution post leaching with salts (forget any acid as that just simple screws the optics and anything will leach out with a strong enough acid). The second would be if the HREO recovery at better rates than the Ce and La it is also usually indication of ionic nature again with salts only. The low Yttrium content and non homogenous nature of the HREO to LREO content are 2 things that don't sit well with me but aside from that they've got almost all the other recipes you need. And i suggested that to them.
Wasn't enough to get me over the line but said I would watch in earnest and irrespective of outcome wished them the best of success. Was a very good and transparent conversation and think if nothing else you've got a very stable, sensible person making decision. Not one that is attempting to put lipstick on the pig.
I'll wait for the met results, as i've said with all REO in clay projects i've reviewed.
Show me a 90% concentrate leached under salt lixiviant that has ok grade, ok depth, not buried deep and I will plunge my money in as I did when I found the IAC project I hold. For more info on IAC i've shared some info below along with a couple other helpful links. Alternatively keyword search my name have maybe shared 50-60 links/scholar articles relating to the subject. This is inclusive of projects I don't hold there's probably 10 or so i have commented on in the last year. So you can see the nature in which i post on things I do and don't hold and it generally objected.
I confirmed with Michael (The MD here) that he was comfortable for me to share my thoughts along with the discussion. I did acknowledge that I will hold my judgements for now given what i generally know these to be but indicated that the grades, and width of the intercepts would provide leverage over peers if even only a portion is ionic. We also laughed about some other projects attempting some very obtuse met practises (They wont be named because i'm not here to rain on parades, people need to DYOR).
If anyone wants to verify that with him you can. Will return when the mets land - if they stack up i'll be in. No different to the other REO in clay explorers. So far only 1 for me.
@mileraFC some reading below. Won't post here anymore as my monologues can typically be annoying and admittedly I'm time poor and tag heavy in terms of getting responses back to everyone on economic assessment.
"According to Bradbury and Baeyens17 as well as Piasecki and Sverjensky,18 for acidic and near‐ neutral conditions (pH < 6.5‐6.8), most of the surface‐adsorbed lanthanides occur as simple or hydrated cations such as “clay‐REE” or “clay‐REE(H2O)n” species derived from straightforward cation‐exchange reversible reactions at the permanent negative charge sites on the clays (physisorption);
for pH > 7 the prevalent form is the hydrolyzed “clay‐O‐REE2+” species derived from permanent complexation reactions at the amphoteric surface hydroxyl groups (chemisorption) or soluble carbonate/bicarbonate complexes.Due to various weathering conditions (i.e. nature of host rocks, water and soil pH, temperature, pressure, redox conditions) there are three main categories of REE present in the ion‐adsorption clays, as described by Chi and Tian8 :
1. Colloid phase: REE deposited as insoluble oxides or hydroxides or as part of colloidal polymeric organometallic compounds. These species have low occurrence in ores at the slightly acidic natural conditions and can be recovered only by acid leach.
2. Exchangeable phase: REE occur as soluble free cations/hydrated cations or part of positively‐charged complexes in solution adsorbed species on clays. These species account for 60‐90% of total content of rare earths in ores and can be recovered by ion‐exchange leaching with monovalent salts.
3. Mineral phase: REE part of solid fine particles with same mineral matrix as the host rocks (REE part of the crystal lattice). This phase usually accounts for the balance from the ion‐exchangeable phase towards the TREE content and can be recovered only by aggressive conditions (alkaline bake and acid leach)."
Number 2 is where you need to be. All 3 can be present in the clay. The fact it is kaolinite or halloysite doesn't preclude that it all or even some will be in the exchangeable or ionic phase. Post #:
54369497The extraction of RE elements from the ore body is an ion exchange process. With the injection of the leaching solution, RE cations absorbed on the ore body will be replaced by more active cations in the solution seepage process. The main chemical reaction is shown below.
The exchange between the RE cations and more active cations in the leaching solution follows the law of equivalent exchange, in which the equal amount of charges is exchanged. This process starts with the diffraction of cations in the leaching solution through the diffusion layer on to the ore particle surface. RE cations will then be replaced and eventually be extracted from the mother solution.
In this equation, RE
3+ is the RE cations, SE
n+ is cations with relative active chemical properties (i.e. NH
4+, Na
+, Mg
2+, Al
3+).
The key to how it recovers it not just how much you recovery it's what the concentration of the solution is.
If attempted to leach 1L cup of coffee (lets call it 900ml of water and 100ml of coffee equivalent) this is like a REO deposit at 10% TREO. and i recovered 90% it means that i recovered 90% of the 100ml of coffee. i.e. 90ml.
if that cup of coffee still contains say 800ml of water and it contains 90ml of coffee its 90/800 = 11.2%. So sure recovered 90% of the coffee but it's still a weak solution. When ionic clays are ionic in nature your recoveries with NaCl, or ammonium sulphate aren't usually that great. maybe 30-40% but it's the fact that the solution post leach is 90%+ concentration. aka, you end up with 90ml of coffee in 100ml of liquid. This is a 90% TREO equivalent and this is where you get the value.
https://www.irvresources.com/assets/docs/projects/mulanje-ni43-101-2011.pdfhttps://ejatlas.org/conflict/mulanje-massif-rare-earth-mineral-exploration-malawihttps://www.sharecast.com/news/aim-bulletin/altona-agrees-to-acquire-majority-stake-in-chambe-basin--7528008.html
https://mininginmalawi.com/mining-in-malawi-436/
https://webfiles.thecse.com/sedar_filings/00037915/1701301301341853.pdf
https://www.mwnation.com/second-phase-hunt-for-rare-earths-starts/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/ion-adsorption
https://www.goldseiten.de/artikel/154918--Gold-Canyonund039s-Projects-and-Corporate-Update.html should provide guidance to the releases for Chambe which Gold Canyon done.
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/46172272/malawi-ni-43-101-december-2011-gold-canyon-resources-inc/7 here’s the NI43-101 for Malawi project.https://www.mkango.ca/i/pdf/NI43-101-Songwe-REE-Project-22-Nov-2012-low-res.pdf (songwe project (carbonite), not Ionic Clay but might be of interest.)
https://mininginmalawi.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/2019-mkango-resources-ni-43-101-technical-report.pdf (songwe) 200m USD
https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/BDA%20TREM%20Project%20Valuation%20for%20ISR%20-%20September%202017%20-%20Final.ashx?App=Announcement&FileID=471590SF2TH
