Processing design improvements have resulted in higher recoveries of rare earth oxides, including neodymium, dysprosium and yttrium oxide, at Pele Mountain Resources' Eco Ridge Mine Rare Earths and Uranium Project in Elliot Lake.
In a news release, the company said the improvements, which include acid baking rather than the heap leach and bioleach methods proposed in the company's preliminary economic assessment (PEA), will ensure a “significantly greater emphasis on REO production than was envisioned previously.”
“While the leaching and bioleaching processing methods used in the PEA have been considered appropriate for uranium recovery, they achieve relatively poor recovery of rare earths in monazite,” executive vice-president Roger Payne said in the release. “By employing well-established ore concentration and acid baking methods, we can produce much greater quantities of REO than presented in the PEA, while increasing uranium production as well.”
Testing shows that using acid baking results in 80 to 90 per cent recovery of total REO. Using the leach and bioleach methods, results indicated seven per cent recovery for light REO, 34 per cent recovery for heavy REO and 70 per cent for uranium, according to the release.
The company is also aiming to optimize the physical concentration of ore to reduce the total mass requiring treatment in the acid baking process.
Earlier this year, Pele Mountain announced that the mineralization extended beyond the resource than previously believed.
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