Aftermath Silver Ltd. provided an update on recent metallurgical studies at the Company's Berenguela Silver- Copper-Manganese project in southern Peru. The results show a recovery of 95% silver and 89% silver respectively for the 2 composites tested. The standard leach process shows no interference from manganese or other metals.
cyanide consumption is less than 1 kg per oz of silver recovered, indicating this is not a significant cost or technical issue. Test work to complete the flowsheet details on Aftermath's Berenguela project is continuing at Kappes Cassiday and Associates' (KCA) Reno facility. Recent work has focused on silver extraction from two composite samples RD2MINA (KCA test 100164) and RD4LOWA (KCA test 100166).
Work is continuing on additional composite samples of mineralization. The basic flowsheet involves acid leaching of the mineralization using sulfuric and sulfurous acids to dissolve Cu, Mn, Fe, and Zn, then purifying this solution with the objective of producing silver, copper and High Purity Manganese Sulfate Monohydrate (HPMSM). Flowsheet steps to accomplish this have been completed, and HPMSM has been made from three ore composites which represent over 65% of the resource.
The acid leach processes dissolve less than 1% of the silver in the mineralization hence the tailings from the acid leach process will be sent to a standard cyanide leach plant. The current test program builds on metallurgical work carried out by KCA in 2010. Sixteen composite samples weighing over 6 tonnes in total were selected from Aftermath's metallurgical drilling program and delivered to KCA's laboratory in Reno.
The composites represent the key geometallurgical domains which cover all mineralization types encountered and form the basis of the current metallurgical processing campaign. Test work is being performed individually or on blends of the samples.
