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Avalon Announces Start of 2015 Pilot Plant Program on its Separation Rapids Lithium Project, Kenora, ON
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 17, 2015) - Avalon Rare Metals Inc . ( TSX : A...
About this update from Avalon Advanced Materials Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"Avalon Announces Start of 2015 Pilot Plant Program on its Separation Rapids Lithium Project, Kenora, ONToronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 17, 2015) - Avalon Rare Metals Inc. (TSX: AVL) (NYSE MKT: AVL) (\"Avalon\" or the \"Company\") is pleased to announce that a $750,000 pilot plant program has commenced on the Company's Separation Rapids Lithium Project (\"Separation Rapids Project\" or \"the Project\") located near Kenora, Ontario. The 2015 pilot plant program will provide a trial of the new lithium minerals process flow sheet developed at the bench scale over the past year under the direction of SVP, Metallurgy and Technology Development, David Marsh. A total of 30 tonnes of crushed ore will be shipped to a laboratory in Germany for processing to produce a minimum of 1 tonne of pure lithium mineral (petalite) concentrate. This petalite concentrate will be used for two purposes: 1) to provide product samples to potential customers in the glass—ceramics industry who have expressed interest in evaluating these samples and 2) to provide concentrate for additional process development toward producing a high purity lithium chemical product for use by customers in the lithium ion rechargeable battery manufacturing business. The lithium chemicals work will be done at the laboratories of the Saskatchewan Research Council (\"SRC\") in Saskatoon. The entire program is expected to be completed over the next 6-8 months. The OpportunityThe Separation Rapids Project hosts an exceptionally large deposit of the rare lithium mineral petalite, which is noted for its lack of contained impurities. For this reason, petalite has a long history of use in specialty glass-ceramic products that require raw materials with a high degree of purity. Demand for petalite in this application has been growing steadily, with users now looking for new long term sources of supply. Avalon re-activated the Project in 2013 after receiving a number of expressions of interest from glass-ceramic manufacturers. In 2014, the Company successfully re-established and improved upon its original process flowsheet at the bench scale to produce high purity petalite concentrate containing an average of 4.2% lithium oxide and less than 0.01% iron oxide (a glass contaminant). Small samples of this material were subsequently analyzed and approved for further evaluati...