@MOLONLAVE480The below is from Chatgpt, I quite like the analogy, and it is what RAU is facing, RAU Tiros project is 25km from ENV CODA. RAU have multiple ongoing workstreams for metwork to see if they can indeed improve tio2 and or REE recoveries with similar criteria to MEI.
Imagine you have a delicious cake recipe, but it requires a very special, expensive, and time-consuming baking method to make it. You have the best ingredients (high grade rare earths in the soil), but instead of being able to bake it easily and cheaply in a regular oven (using ammonium sulfate at pH 4 for 30 minutes), you need to use a more complex and costly method (heating to 80°C for an unknown period).
On top of that, you have some extra ingredients mixed in, like chocolate chips (TiO2 in the soil). However, the process to get those chocolate chips out and make them useful is very inefficient, resulting in poor recoveries. It’s so challenging that even expert bakers (Iluka) have given up trying to make this cake because they couldn't get good results with the chocolate chips. So, even though you have high-quality ingredients, the way you have to cook the cake (metallurgy process) and the difficulty in efficiently extracting and utilizing the rare earths and the extra ingredients (TiO2) makes the whole process harder and more expensive. The efficiency and affordability of making the cake are just as important, if not more, than having the best ingredients
(20min delay)