Study into great balls of nickel
THE proponents of one of the world’s most unique nickel discoveries, where the metal is contained within super small clusters of “balls” but cannot be conventionally processed, has launched a scoping study into building a pilot plant to test a potential new processing breakthrough.
If successful, the new processing route could unlock the mining future for Australian- based Comet Minerals Limited’s 20sqkm outcropping world- class Titan nickel project, 200km east of the Nigerian capital, Abuja, and where the balls visible at surface contain 95pc Ni metal.
As such, their metallurgy is naturally richer than nickel produced from a concentrator.
Speaking on the third and final day of the Paydirt 2019 Africa Downunder mining conference in Perth, Comet director and veteran Australian mining identity, Hugh Morgan, said Perth interests known as WildIP had patented a new metal extraction process thought applicable to the Titan metallurgy .
A royalty free licence to use the process has been granted to Comet specifically for the Titan project and a pilot plant scoping study using the technology, is now underway.
“WildIP’s Ni metal digestion process uses low temperature and low cost reagents,” Mr Morgan said.
“Its environmentally benign digest liquor has proved to be 100pc effective and efficient and can be recycled, meaning cheaper processing costs and less water requirements.
“This potentially points to the opportunity not to have a tailings dam on a mine site and for any dried residue to be used for backfill.”
The new approach also allows the pregnant liquid to be precipitated to produce whatever nickel product is required such as nickel sulphate hydroxide.
Mr Morgan said the breakthrough had broad application to metals and was particularly effective for Ni metal and other nickel ore types including laterites.
But it could also extract other metals including gold, platinum, palladium, copper and silver.
Initial testing of some gold ore types had returned 100pc gold extractions.
Comet discovered the unique deposition about four years ago as a new “ball” style of native Ni metal and of up to 0.5cm in diameter.
The balls comprise 95pc nickel and are disseminated in the host rock at a grade estimated at between 1.5- 3pc nickel.
Mr Morgan acknowledged that the normal scheme of things would have been to start a drill out to define the mineralised body and to assess its grade and depth extent and then move to mining – but it was found the Titan nickel balls were insoluble by conventional digestion methods, forcing a hunt for a new processing solution.
“Physical extraction was one possible method but would have resulted in only 25pc recovery of the Ni metal as 70pc of the balls are too fine to physically extract and many balls are buoyant and floated off in conventional processing tests,” he said.
“It was clear to us that without a wet chemistry process, we could only extract 25pc of the metal.
“The new breakthrough maintains our conviction that there continues to be a reasonable expectation of developing Titan into a world- class Ni deposit able to rival the world’s largest and important Ni mines.”