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Industrial Minerals Ltd (ASX: IND or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has received results from High Purity Ǫuartz Processing Testwork1 completed by North Carolina State University’s Mineral Research Laboratory (“NCSU-MRL”).
Highlights
- Exceptional Processing Testwork results received from North Carolina State University’s Mineral Research Laboratory (NCSU-MRL), an industry leading independent High Purity Ǫuartz lab.
- Ǫuartz sample T1-C, a maiden sample from the Mukinbudin Project, achieved >99.991% SiO2 from a simple processing flow sheet that included attrition, flotation and magnetic separation treatment, opening opportunities for early stage offtake.
- All samples sent to NCSU-MRL, from both Pippingarra and Mukinbudin demonstrated outstanding purity levels, confirming the exciting potential of IND’s quartz deposits and their suitability for high-end applications.
- In parallel with the numerous ongoing offtake discussions and ongoing end customer testing, IND now plans to undertake further comprehensive independent testwork at leading industrial minerals consultancy ANZAPLAN in Germany to further assist in finalising product offtake.
IND is exploring for High Purity Ǫuartz (“HPǪ”) at several of its projects in Western Australia, and the testwork was completed on samples from IND’s Pippingarra Ǫuarry Project and Mukinbudin Ǫuartz/Feldspar Project.
Jeff Sweet, Managing Director of Industrial Minerals, commented:
“We are extremely encouraged by achieving +99.99% SiO2 purity through to the acid leaching stage of our process testwork. These results are incredibly promising for our HPǪ production. With calcination and hot chlorination stages yet to be tested, we anticipate even greater purity levels can be achieved. This progress underscores our confidence in achieving premium quality in our final product.
“The Mukinbudin quartz was purified to 99.991% SiO2 through magnetic separation and flotation process work alone. This simple flowsheet will allow IND to pursue early-stage offtake opportunities into a broader range of HPǪ applications.
“Given the large price differential at the premium end of the HPǪ market as illustrated in Figure 1, IND’s ultimate goal is to now test the maximum purity level achievable across the Company’s quartz projects with the aim to be a recognised long term supplier of quality HPǪ products.”
Figure 1: High Purity Ǫuartz raw ore pricing CIF China based on industry feedback2
Processing Testwork Results
North Carolina State University’s Minerals Research Laboratory is a world leader in research, development and implementation of mineral processing techniques. The main focus of NCSU- MRL’s research is the beneficiation of industrial minerals.
Ǫuartz Ore Samples
IND sent three 20kg quartz ore samples to NCSU-MRL for the purpose of assessing the potential to use as feedstock for the production of High Purity Ǫuartz. Test samples T1_A and T1-B were sourced from IND’s Pippingarra Ǫuarry Project (Figure 2) and test sample T1_C was sourced from the Mukinbudin Project (Figure 3).
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