TIDMRBW
RNS Number : 3569Q
Rainbow Rare Earths Limited
28 June 2022
28 June 2022
Rainbow Rare Earths Limited
("Rainbow" or "the Company")
LSE: RBW
Rainbow Confirms Successful Development of Rare Earths
Extraction Flowsheet
Rainbow Rare Earths confirms the development of a process
flowsheet to extract rare earth elements efficiently from the
phosphogypsum stacks at the Company's Phalaborwa Project in South
Africa. This innovative process has been developed by Rainbow in
collaboration with K-Technologies, Inc., USA ("K-Tech"), following
extensive test work carried out at ANSTO Minerals, Australia, and
at K-Tech's facilities in Florida, U.S.A.
Historically, the extraction of rare earths from phosphogypsum
has proven technically, environmentally and economically
challenging. However, Rainbow and K-Tech have developed a process
flowsheet at Phalaborwa, underpinned by comprehensive test work,
which successfully delivers an overall recovery of between 65% to
70% of the contained rare earths. This compares very favourably to
the overall recovery of separated rare earth oxides via standard
processes. Importantly, the process employs standard, proven
equipment and readily available reagents in a novel combination.
Rainbow and K-Tech will jointly patent the process with a view to
applying this to further rare earths projects.
Following leaching of the phosphogypsum with sulphuric acid and
subsequent rapid concentration of the rare earths in the pregnant
leach solution, the concentrated rare earths solution is upgraded
in K-Tech's proprietary continuous ion exchange ("CIX") and
continuous ion chromatography ("CIC") process to deliver
high-purity oxides of the target magnet rare earths, namely
neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium.
CIX and CIC have both been applied commercially in multiple
applications since their development in the 1980s. These processes
are now found globally in the food, biotech, chemical, water
treatment, pharmaceutical and mining industries. Several of these
industrial installations are found in South Africa.
The CIX/CIC process has several economic and environmental
advantages over the conventional solvent extraction route, which
include:
-- Nine process stages are required for the CIC separation,
versus hundreds of stages in the solvent extraction ("SX") method
depending on the desired product mix;
-- No hazardous or toxic solvents are required, whereas they are integral to the SX process;
-- Capital and operating costs are significantly lower for CIX/CIC compared to SX; and
-- Working capital requirements for CIX/CIC are minimised when
compared to SX, due to the shorter time required for the production
and delivery of saleable product.
Now that this important milestone has been successfully
delivered, Rainbow looks forward to completing the technical
feasibility study, which is expected to demonstrate this to be one
of the lowest cost global producers of separated rare earth
oxides.
Rainbow Rare Earths CEO, George Bennett, commented: "Working
closely with K-Tech, we have been able to identify and confirm a
novel process which will allow us to recover valuable rare earth
oxides in a low capex and opex manner from phosphogypsum. We are
now in the process of jointly patenting this intellectual property
with K-Tech and believe it will allow us to secure additional rare
earths opportunities, such as the previously announced
collaboration with a major chemicals group in South Africa.
Importantly, whilst the configuration of this new flowsheet is
innovative, each individual stage is well tested on a commercial
basis, with the required equipment and reagents being readily
available.
Since introducing Phalaborwa to our portfolio in December 2020,
we have always indicated that we believe it to be an exciting and
near-term development opportunity to produce critical rare earths
required for the green energy transition. The confirmation of an
efficient and economic rare earths extraction flowsheet for the
Project represents within 18 months a remarkable achievement for
our business and underlines the significant amount of work carried
out at the Project to date."
**ENDS**
Market Abuse Regulation ("MAR") Disclosure
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes
of Article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014 as it
forms part of UK domestic law by virtue of the European Union
(Withdrawal) Act 2018 ("MAR"), and is disclosed in accordance with
the Company's obligations under Article 17 of MAR.
For further information, please contact:
Rainbow Rare Earths George Bennett
Ltd Company Pete Gardner +27 82 652 8526
SP Angel Corporate Ewan Leggat
Finance LLP Broker Charlie Bouverat +44 (0) 20 3470 0470
Tavistock Communications PR/IR Charles Vivian +44 (0) 20 7920 3150
Tara Vivian-Neal rainbowrareearths@tavistock.co.uk
Notes to Editors:
About K-Technologies Inc.:
K-Tech is a chemical process development and applications
company serving the minerals and chemicals industries. K-Tech
specialises in the development of process technologies that require
unique recovery and/or component separation demands, especially
those related to continuous separation methodologies. K-Tech has
extensive knowhow and experience of separation processes involving
continuous ion exchange, continuous ion chromatography and advanced
sorption techniques as they apply to a variety of chemical and
environmental applications.
About Rainbow Rare Earths:
Rainbow's strategy is to become a globally significant producer
of rare earth metals. NdPr and Dy are vital components of the
strongest permanent magnets used for the motors and turbines
driving the green technology revolution. Analysts are predicting
demand for magnet rare earth oxides will grow substantially over
the coming years, driven by increasing adoption of green
technology, pushing the overall market for NdPr and Dy into
deficit.
The Phalaborwa Rare Earths Project, located in South Africa,
comprises an Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate of 38.3Mt at 0.43%
TREO contained within gypsum tailings stacked in unconsolidated
stacks derived from historic phosphate hard rock mining and
processing. High value NdPr oxide represents 29.1% of the total
contained rare earth oxides, with economic Dysprosium and Terbium
oxide credits enhancing the overall value of the rare earth basket
in the stacks. The rare earths are contained in chemical form in
the gypsum stacks, which is expected to allow high-value separated
rare earth oxides to be produced with lower operating costs than a
typical rare earth mineral project.
The Company's Gakara Project in Burundi has produced one of the
highest-grade rare earth concentrates in the world (typically 54%
TREO) through trial mining operations. The Gakara basket is
weighted heavily towards NdPr, which account for approximately
19.5% of the contained TREO and 85% of the value of the
concentrate. The Gakara project is currently on care and
maintenance at the request of the Government of Burundi.
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END
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June 28, 2022 02:00 ET (06:00 GMT)
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