All test runs undertaken to date on ABx Group’s (ASX:ABX) bath pilot batch reactor have provided its 83% owned subsidiary ALCORE ‘valuable’ insight into the design of its continuous pilot plant.
In late January 2024, ALCORE conducted a fourth test run on the reactor with newly prepared bath feed, as part of its ongoing campaign to optimise the bath feed particle size for the ALCORE process development. This is expected to increase fluorine recovery.
ABx, which has a market capitalisation company of $18 million, is ‘highly encouraged’ by the progress as the bath pilot batch reactor is performing as designed and is allowing the effects of process conditions to be determined.
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Dr Mark Cooksey says the company is awaiting results from the latest test run and his confidence in the process to produce hydrogen fluoride has not wavered.
“With newly commissioned equipment to allow bath feed particle size to be controlled, I strongly believe that we will achieve a higher recovery of fluorine from upcoming test runs at pilot scale.
We are now awaiting further assay results from the fourth test run which utilised this new equipment and we are planning further reactor tests over the coming months.”
The company adds that it has received analytical results from independent assessments of several powder samples from a third test run of the reactor.
ABx reports the sample results consistently show 70% fluorine recovery.
The fluorine recovery was primarily as a result of ‘large’ particles of bath — a known reason for a loss of fluorine recovery, as ‘larger’ particles will react much slower in the reactor.
ALCORE anticipated this issue and ordered a ball mill, alongside an ultrasonic vibrating screen in October 2023, which enabled ALCORE to prepare bath with a narrower range of particle sizes.
The ball mill and ultrasonic vibrating screen was used in the fourth test run.
The reactor is operating at the ALCORE Technology Centre on the New South Wales Central Coast and has been designed to recover fluorine from an aluminium smelter waste to produce hydrogen fluoride.
At commercial scale, a proportion of the hydrogen fluoride will be further processed via an existing commercial process to produce aluminium fluoride.
The new reactor is 10 times ‘larger’ than the company’s previous laboratory scale reactor.
ABx is a high-tech Australian company focused on delivering materials for a cleaner future. The company’s assets focus on rare earths, hydrogen fluoride and aluminium fluoride.
As of 31 December 2023, the company had $5.851 million cash and cash equivalents at hand, according to its latest quarterly report.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: ABx Group
