Red Metal strips rare earths impurities in QLD metallurgical breakthrough

Red Metal Ltd says it has made a major breakthrough in metallurgical testing of its rare earths ore from the company’s Sybella project in Queensland that will result in less impurities and higher grades.

The company has managed to replace the standard two-stage impurity removal process with a simple Ion exchange process that will lower costs and increase purities.

Ion exchange plants are commonly used for primary metal recovery of uranium, nickel and cobalt and for water purification.

Additional advantages include scope to make a significantly higher purity mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC), materially lower alkali costs, reduced flowsheet complexity and much lower operating and capital costs for impurity removal and MREC precipitation.

Red Metal says it has many advantages with its so