Work with the National Research Council extends the process from batch reactors to a continuously fed circuit with reagent recycling.
The company has expanded its collaboration with the National Research Council of Canada to cover continuous-operation testing. The programme moves the process off batch reactors and onto a fed circuit in which the chloride solution is recovered and returned.
Closing the loop on the reagent is what keeps operating cost and waste volume down. In batch testing the process recovered up to 95 percent of the contained manganese with no hazardous tailings; the continuous campaign is designed to hold those figures over extended run times.
Results from the campaign feed directly into the engineering package for a demonstration plant.