Innovation Metals Corp., a private Canadian company and the developer of the patent-pending RapidSX process, announced today the successful completion of a demonstration program to produce commercial-grade Pr-Nd oxide, using feedstock from the Minera Serra Verde deposit in Goias State, Brazil. IMC proprietary RapidSX solvent-extraction process was developed for the low-cost separation of rare-earth elements, nickel, cobalt and other technology metals. Pr-Nd oxide is in increasing demand for the production of high-performance permanent magnets, used in a wide variety of industrial, automotive, defense and clean-tech applications. Combining the time-proven chemistry of SX with IMC proprietary column-based approach, avoids the risks associated with novelty separation approaches that require expensive resins and other complex methods, not yet demonstrated at scale.
The demonstration project was conducted at the IMC pilot-plant facility in Mississauga, Canada, capable of producing 2 tonnes of REEs / month. The RapidSX process was developed as a result of funding from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, part of the DoD. The approach dramatically reduces the number of REE separation stages in the SX chemical circuits by up to 90%, when compared to conventional SX systems, leading to a significant reduction in plant footprint and associated capital expenditures. The process also leads to major reductions in operating costs and time to process completion, reducing processing times from weeks to just days for each REE separation completed. Although the process needs to be further demonstrated at a larger scale, these initial results indicate average separation costs of below $2.00 per kg for a suite of high-value separated REEs, with capital costs for a 2,500 tonnes REE per year RapidSX-based facility in the region of $10-15M or less (all $ in US dollars).
Original Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/innovation-metals-corp-announces-successful-180000806.html
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