Innord Develops Bauxite Residues Process Using Its Environmentally Friendly Technology
Geomega Resources Inc. (“Geomega” or the “Corporation”) (TSX.V: GMA) (OTC: GOMRF) a developer of clean technologies for the mining, refining and recycling of rare earths, is pleased to announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Innord, has developed a bench scale process, based on its environmentally friendly technology, to process Bauxite Residues (“BR”), a potentially valuable by-product that is being generated during refining of alumina using the Bayer process. It has now entered a research agreement with an international industrial partner to extract rare earth elements (REE), scandium (Sc) and other critical and potentially valuable metals from this readily available material.
Geomega believes that BR is a perfect fit to expand Innord’s extraction technology, which had been originally developed for rare earths extraction from various feeds including, but not limited to, recycled magnets and potential ore from Geomega’s Montviel REE deposit in Quebec. Drawing from the strengths and versatility of its technology, Innord had been seeking to identify large industrial and mining waste challenges with the following characteristics:
High iron (Fe) content – in BR >40% Fe2O3
Loss of critical and strategic metals in the tailings (rare earth elements, scandium, titanium and vanadium)
Need for reagents recycling and tailings volume reduction
Relative to existing methods (less than 5% of global BR is being used today) and contrary to previously developed metallurgical approaches that either only displace the environmental impact towards effluents and/or other residues, provide insufficient volume reduction or have limited economic viability, Innord’s process potentially offers the following benefits:
Significant tailings volume reduction (>80%)
Minimize effluents by recycling the main reagents, which would in turn reduce operating costs and avoid creating other waste streams
Value maximization of the available metals, thereby enhancing the economics of the process, which include:
Bulk traditional metals such as Al and Fe
Strategic metal concentrates (REE, Sc, Ti, V)
While the main focus of the Company remains on the engineering studies of the demonstration plant in St-Bruno, Innord has been developing the flowsheet and conducted bench scale work demonstrating the various steps of the BR process in the last 12 months. The upcoming work will continue to test and validate the process at the bench scale in preparation for potential pilot testing, focus on characterization of outlet streams and the techno-economical feasibility study of the technology. The industrial partner will be contributing material for the testwork and expertise on various product stream specifications.
Ownership of the Intellectual Property developed by Innord through this research work will remain with the Company. With BR representing a global challenge, Innord is developing the technology with the objective to make it available globally through a licensing / royalty structure once the technology has demonstrated its economical and environmental feasibility on a larger scale.
“We are thrilled to be working on such an important environmental global challenge. Aluminum, the most produced non-ferrous metal in the world, is a key material of the 21st century for such major industries as transportation, aviation, construction and many other sectors. In the environmentally conscious world we now live in, local environmental regulations and social acceptability dictate that now is the time to find a solution to BR storage. There is a tremendous economic potential benefit as well, as every tonne of BR contains between USD $80 and USD $120 worth of critical and strategic metals that are becoming imperative to recover. We believe that Innord’s technology is well positioned to offer economic and environmentally innovative solutions to sustainability challenges. We look forward to continue advancing the technology towards larger scale testing,” commented Kiril Mugerman, President and CEO of Geomega.
About Geomega
Geomega develops innovative technologies for extraction and separation of rare earth elements and other critical metals essential for a sustainable future. With a focus on renewable energies, vehicle electrification, automation and reduction in energy usage, rare earth magnets or neo-magnets (NdFeB) are at the center of all these technologies. Geomega’s strategy revolves around gradually de-risking its innovative technology and delivering cashflow and return value to shareholders while working directly with the main players in these industries to recycle the magnets that power all those technologies.
As its technologies are demonstrated on larger scales, Geomega is committed to work with major partners to help extract value from mining feeds, tailings and other industrial residues which contain rare earths and other critical metals. Irrespective of the metal or the source, Geomega adopts a consistent approach to reduce the environmental impact and to contribute to lowering greenhouse gases emissions through recycling the major reagents in the process.
Geomega’s core project is based around the ISR Technology (Innord’s Separation of Rare Earths), a proprietary, low-cost, environmentally friendly way to tap into a C$1.5 billion global market to recycle magnet production waste and end of life magnets profitably & safely.
Geomega also owns the Montviel rare earth carbonatite deposit, the largest 43-101 bastnaesite resource estimate in North America and holds over 16.8M shares, representing approximately 16% of the issued and outstanding shares, of Kintavar Exploration Inc. (KTR.V), a mineral exploration company that is exploring for copper projects in Quebec, Canada.
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