As with most processing, there are a number of steps involved e.g. gold mining - crushing, grinding, leaching, adsorption, elution, electrowinning, smelting to dore and then refining to 99.99% fine gold bullion.
This testwork is the first step in trying to increase the head grade via concentration prior to the downstream phase which might be heat, pressure, acid or some other form of leaching or a combination of these.
90% of the Vanadium metal is in the fine fraction (-38 micron) and therefore they are aiming to remove the course fraction which holds much less metal via forming a concentrate.
From table 2, they have pulled 78.42% of the metal from 38.46% of the mass. e.g. you have 1,000 tonnes at 0.35% Va, after this initial work you have 384.6 tonnes at 1.1% Va, the other 615.4 tonnes is tails at 0.1% Va and is not sent for downstream processing, and therefore results in lower costs - you are only treating a bit over a third of the tonnes at a much improved grade.
With a head grade at Lilyvale of 0.35%, the company is trying to concentrate this up to 1.5% to 2% via mechanical means e.g. scrubbing, trommelling, screening, cycloning and flotation etc and in it's first pass testwork has achieved 1.1%, so are well on their way to achieving this goal, but there is more work to do on concentration as well as the downstream processing work.
Trust this assists - IMHO.
IRC Price at posting:
18.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
