Scandium Canada (TSX-V:SCD) has completed a campaign for the optimisation of its mineral processing and hydrometallurgical flowsheet for scandium and rare earths recovery from the Crater Lake Project at SGS Canada in Lakefield, Ontario.
The results of these tests will be used to prepare a Prefeasibility Study (PFS) for the Crater Lake Project located in northeastern Québec.
Scandium Canada says the current process leads to a 99.5% purity for the scandium oxide precipitate, which is the primary commercial product from the Crater Lake Project, and to a 99.2% purity for the rare earth oxides, which are the secondary output from the Crater Lake Project.
“This is the first instance of achieving reportable purity levels of the oxides from the Company’s flowsheet. The purity of scandium oxide is well within acceptable limits for its use in aluminium-scandium alloys, which Scandium Canada targets as the main end-use of scandium oxide,” the company says.
Scandium Canada Technical Advisor Dr Peter Kondos adds that the hydrometallurgical optimisation has performed exceptionally well, with a high scandium recovery of 93.3%, bringing the overall Scandium recovery from ore to final product to 77.3%, which is a remarkable performance in this field.
This optimisation campaign used a 500 kg ore sample from a 15-ton bulk sample extracted from Crater Lake.
Scandium Canada says the data reported previously about mineral processing is now integrated into the overall flowsheet.
Thee results confirm a significant reduction in concentrate to be transported by trucks and processed at our hydrometallurgical site, reducing capital and operating costs. The current flowsheet leads to the production of 91 tonnes per year of Scandium oxide vs 87 tonnes per year (PEA results), while transporting and processing 27,000 fewer tonnes of concentrate
Scandium Canada CEO Guy Bourassa says the data will serve as the basis for the PFS required for advancing the development of the TG zone of the Crater Lake Project.
“The PFS will determine the impact on the operating and capital costs associated with our optimised flowsheets,” the CEO says.
“We already determined that, compared to our 2022 PEA, we are reducing by about 27,000t/year the concentrate to be transported from the mine and processed in the hydrometallurgical plant, resulting in an important operating cost reduction, while increasing scandium oxide output.”
The current work aimed at improving the flowsheet reported in the company’s 2022 PEA. The focus was to confirm bench-scale test results and improve the recovery of the payable metals (scandium and rare earths) while reducing capital and operating costs. The table below summarizes some of the high points of the results.
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Images: Scandium Canada
