The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Metal Tech News - September 7, 2022
L3 Process Development has built a demonstration plant at its facilities in Quebec to test a process for recovering rare earths, along with the niobium, scandium, and titanium found at NioCorp's Elk Creek critical minerals project in Nebraska.
A furnace at the demonstration plant designed to test a simplified process flow sheet for the recovery of niobium, titanium, scandium, and rare earths from ore extracted from the Elk Creek critical minerals project in Nebraska.
Looking to expand the suite of critical metals produced from a future mine at Elk Creek, NioCorp Developments Ltd. is testing a simplified process for recovering rare earth elements alongside the niobium, scandium, and titanium for which the Nebraska critical minerals project is best known.
According to a feasibility study completed earlier this year, an underground mine at Elk Creek would produce an estimated 170,409 metric tons of niobium, 431,793 metric tons of titanium, and 3,677 metric tons of scandium over 38 years of mining.
Further details of the results from the Elk Creek feasibility study update can be read at Elk Creek deposit proves to be rare earth in the May 20, 2022 edition of Metal Tech News.
This economic and engineering study, however, does not consider the potential recovery of the vast quantities of rare earths found in the same rocks that carry this trio of critical minerals.
According to a calculation completed in May, Elk Creek hosts 632,900 metric tons of total rare earth oxides, 970,300 metric tons of niobium oxide, 11,337 metric tons of scandium oxide, and 4.2 million metric tons of titanium oxides in the indicated resource category.
Including the 14 individual rare earth elements, this unique deposit hosts 17 of the 50 minerals critical to America's economic well-being and national security.
"Given recent geopolitical events and the world's ongoing global energy transition, we feel a strong imperative to produce more of the critical minerals that America and the Western world need to meet these challenges," NioCorp Developments CEO Mark Smith said in May. "The updated feasibility study shows that the Elk Creek deposit contains an abundance of critical minerals, including rare earths, and we are working very hard to ensure America can benefit from the full range of the critical minerals our deposit could economically deliver."
Toward the company's imperative to be a domestic producer of 34% of the minerals deemed critical to the United States, NioCorp and Utah-based L3 Process Development are testing a process to extract Elk Creek's rare earths at a demonstration plant in Quebec, Canada.
To accomplish this, the demonstration plant is processing ore samples from Elk Creek in three phases.
• The initial phase is designed to demonstrate a new approach to the initial processing of Elk Creek ores.
• The second phase is designed to further test an improved process for the second stage of leaching, along with the separation of niobium and titanium.
• The third phase will test the technical viability of separating high-purity versions of several target magnetic rare earth products and scandium from Elk Creek ore samples.
NioCorp is particularly interested in the separation of certain magnet rare earth products – neodymium-praseodymium oxide, dysprosium oxide, and terbium oxide – due to their rocketing demand to manufacture the powerful permanent magnets going into electric vehicle motors, wind turbine generators, and a wide array of consumer and industrial products.
NioCorp is employing conventional solvent extraction technology to test a rare earth separation approach being developed with the expertise of L3.
L3 has carried out extensive metallurgical testing of Elk Creek ore, including bench scale testing of the processes being scaled up at the demonstration plant in Quebec.
"Many of these processes have already been successfully tested at the bench scale. Given our team's years of experience in hydrometallurgy, including rare earth separations, I expect that we will demonstrate positive results," said NioCorp Developments Chief Operating Officer Scott Honan. "I also look forward to potentially demonstrating how our simplified process flow sheet can more efficiently and cost-effectively produce niobium, scandium, and titanium."
If successful, NioCorp plans to incorporate the results from this work into an updated feasibility study that adds rare earths to critical minerals produced at a future Elk Creek mine, as well as a simpler process for recovering the niobium, titanium, and scandium also found at the Nebraska critical minerals project.
With more than 16 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration and technology metals.
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