Australian Vanadium (AVL) recently announced that exceptional vanadium extraction has been achieved during bench scale testing.
The test work is being undertaken at the Metso pyrometallurgical testing facilities in the U.S.
Despite COVID-19 causing minor timeline disruptions, the lab has slowly returned close to full capacity and AVL’s program is scheduled to be completed in September this year.
The company’s pre-feasibility vanadium roast leach extraction was 84.3 per cent, based on bench scale test work for a standard flowsheet. However, in the most recent optimized pilot scale testing of a grate kiln flowsheet has achieved an average of 93.3 per cent leach extraction. After allowing a scale-up, this has delivered an eight per cent improvement on the basis applied in the pre-feasibility study.
The test outcomes relate to the processing of concentrate designed to represent the average first five years of forecasted production. The tests build on previous bench scale test results where 587 kilograms of concentrate was roasted.
With the optimized roasting conditions now understood, the final bulk production phase of the pyrometallurgical test work will be executed. A downstream hydrometallurgical pilot program is underway to finalize the company’s processing flowsheet.
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