King River Resources Limited provided this end of year update on the ongoing study work which supports the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) for the Type 1 Precursor Processing Plant and further Vanadium process optimisation. This laboratory pilot plant campaign run by Source Certain International (SCI) is a repeat test of the process changes of Campaign 3 where a stage in the Primary Crystallisation flowsheet was not used. As with Campaign 3, Campaign 4 resulted in >99.999% purity so this process reduction will be incorporated into the DFS process design.

Removal of this stage in the Primary Crystallisation step is a significant improvement and simplification to the process, and may result in economic benefits to be addressed in the DFS. The Type 1 Precursor Aluminium salt product from Campaign 4 was produced from an industrial chemical compound feedstock by the ARC Process. SCI assayed the Type 1 Precursor products using the ICP-MS and ICP-AES methods.

SCI completed 4 duplicate analyses on the Campaign 4 batch to improve confidence in the results (Figure 1) and the >99.999% purity is an average of the 4 repeat assays. Each Precursor purity result was calculated by the addition of all the assayed element impurities that reported above the detection limit then subtracting this result from 100%. Variability in the results is due to differences in the test sample and the analytical precision.

The main contaminants in the Precursor are silicon (Si), potassium (K), sodium (Na) and calcium (Ca). HPA PROJECT - IMPROVED PATH TO HPA 4N HPA has previously been produced by calcining Type 1 Precursor. Testwork development is underway by SCI to produce Type 2 precursor, an intermediate Aluminium Compound, which on calcination should provide a more economical and environmentally friendly route to producing 4N HPA.

Further details will be reported in 2022. KRR has been trialling using its Type 1 Precursor Aluminium Salt in the production of precursor Cathode Active Materials (P-CAM) used in the manufacture of cathodes of lithium-ion batteries. The focus of the testwork has been to produce a P-CAM of nickel-cobalt-aluminium (NCA) chemistry and previous reported tests have been successful in producing the targeted chemical composition (KRR ASX release 8 September 2021).

Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and sizing tests confirm that further work is required to achieve the correct morphology and particle size distribution and this work is underway. KRR has engaged the Hydrometallurgy Research Group at Murdoch University led by Professor Aleks Nikoloski to develop and optimise processing option(s) for the extraction and recovery of vanadium, titanium, iron products from magnetite-ilmenite concentrates from Speewah vanadium project. The research activities will initially focus on understanding the feed properties and developing suitable salt roasting process(es) for the extraction of vanadium.

Subsequent testwork will optimise the selected roasting processes for the simultaneous extraction of vanadium, the recovery of by-products, including TiO2 for pigment production and direct reduced metallic iron, and the development of a preliminary flow sheet and key process parameters for scale up and further detailed engineering processing plant design.