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Avalon Rare Metals Inc (TSX:AVL) (NYSEMKT:AVL) Provides Update on Separation Rapids and East Kemptville Projects and Announces New Staff Appointment
Toronto, Canada (ABN Newswire) - Avalon Rare Metals Inc (TSE:AVL) (NYSEMKT:AVL) ("Avalon" or ...
About this update from Avalon Advanced Materials Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"Avalon Rare Metals Inc (TSX:AVL) (NYSEMKT:AVL) Provides Update on Separation Rapids and East Kemptville Projects and Announces New Staff Appointment\nToronto, Canada (ABN Newswire) - Avalon Rare Metals Inc (TSE:AVL) (NYSEMKT:AVL) (\"Avalon\" or the \"Company\") is pleased to provide an update on recent progress on its two other advanced development projects: the Separation Rapids Lithium-Tantalum Project and the East Kemptville Tin-Indium Project and to announce a new staff appointment. Separation Rapids Lithium-Tantalum Project Considerable progress has been achieved with a metallurgical testwork program currently underway in Europe, in which a high purity concentrate of the lithium bearing mineral petalite for glass-ceramics applications has been successfully produced. The use of optical sorting was able to split crushed ore into coarse and fine grained fractions and subsequent investigations into processing of the coarse grained rock resulted in a process which generates both a low-iron petalite concentrate and a low-iron mixed (potassium/sodium) feldspar by-product. The new process flowsheet first uses magnetic separation on the optically-sorted and milled ore to remove iron-bearing minerals, then successive flotation circuits to produce the two high purity concentrates. The analysis of the petalite is of particular interest with a Lithium Oxide (Li2O) content of 4.1 - 4.3% and Iron Oxide (Fe2O3) of <0.01% (typical commercial petalite products contain 4.1% Li2O and 0.05% Fe2O3). Other common impurities such as Titanium Dioxide (TiO2 <10ppm), Manganese Oxide (MnO +/-50ppm) and Chromium Oxide (Cr2O3 <10ppm) are also exceptionally low, which will make this material very attractive to end-users in the glass and ceramics industry. The mixed feldspar concentrate also appears to have the potential to be an attractive product for ceramics manufacturers due to its exceptionally low iron levels (<0.01% Fe2O3) when compared to other commercially available feldspar products. This testwork program has now been extended to apply the developed flowsheet on the fine grained fraction of the ore and to also produce a larger volume of final petalite concentrate for evaluation by several potential customers who have already expressed interest in the product. The Qualified Person for the technical and scientific information in this N...