Australian Vanadium to Supply Material for Roasting Pilot Plant

Australian Vanadium (ASX:AVL) will work with Metso Corporation for the next phase of definitive feasibility study pilot testing.

As quoted from the press release:

Metso is a world-leading industrial company offering equipment and services for the sustainable processing of natural resources in the mining and process industries and was chosen because of its world-renowned expertise in Grate Kiln (GK) processing solutions.

AVL and Metso are committed to working together to develop an improved thermal processing solution involving pelletising of the vanadium rich iron concentrate produced at the Australian Vanadium project.

The solution will involve pelletizing the concentrate and processing it through a GK system. Pelletising has been used previously in Europe and China for the processing of primary Vanadium-Titanium-Iron ores. The benefits of pelletizing include:
• improved roasting reaction;
• minimal dusting; and
• reduced build-up of residues within the kiln.

Bench-scale tests have already been completed by AVL on its pelletised vanadium rich iron concentrate (see Figure 1) and have confirmed that pelletised concentrate roasting offers a substantial advantage to the traditional rotary kiln technology currently employed by all primary vanadium producers. AVL’s pelletised roasting tests have shown vanadium extraction results averaging 95.4 percent, versus a rotary kiln extraction of 85-88 percent, which is typical of standard vanadium roasting technologies.

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