Interesting to finally see some met testing results coming through, comments and notes from me;
"The Koppamurra resource is recognised as a clay hosted REE deposit, characterised by a combination of
ionically adsorbed, acid soluble and refractory rare earth minerals." It would be nice to know the proportion of IAC v. refractory hosted REE's ores.
"The analysis identified fine grained intergrowths of Lanthanites, rare earth carbonate minerals hosted in clay and with Geothite-Limonite. La, Nd, Pr, Tb and Sm were distributed mainly in Lanthanite-(La)." I would have thought it unusual for Tb to be hosted with Lanthanum, as being a HREE it is generally hosted with Yttrium.
"A portion of the REE-Y was estimated to be structurally bound, or interstitial, to the clays." Again, what proportion?
"extraction between 44% (median) and 68% (maximum) were achieved for the magnet REEs. These results are based upon sulphuric acid as the lixiviant (the liquid used to extract the metal from the minerals), at ambient temperature and pH 1." Median extraction rates of 44% for magnet REE's appears to be pretty good for an IAC, lab leach column testing of IXR Makuutu ores achieved 43% overall /54% ex. Ce02, however keeping the the sulphuric acid lixiviant @ pH 1, given the natural alkalinity of the ore, could prove to be very expensive; "During testing, it was confirmed that the natural alkalinity of the mineral samples consumes acid needed for pH adjustment and REE extraction."Anyway, good to see some further details coming through for this project, DYOR etc.
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