Scandium Canada Ltd. provided an update on its mineral processing campaign announced in its press release of October 24, 2023. The Company started optimizing its mineral processing and hydrometallurgical flowsheet for scandium and rare earths at SGS Canada Inc. in Lakefield, Ontario, to support the preparation of a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) of the Crater Lake Project in northeastern Quebec. This optimization campaign uses a 600 kg ore sample from a 15-ton bulk sample extracted from Crater Lake.

The optimization program uses the base-case flowsheet reported in the 2022 Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA)1. It works to improve the recovery of the payable metals (scandium and rare earths) while improving the flowsheet's capital and operating costs. The current work confirms a 26.8% increase of the scandium concentrate grade after LIMS (Low-Intensity Magnetic Separation) and WHIMS (Wet High-Intensity Magnetic Separation). The results in the table below show that samples processed at SGS Lakefield in February 2024 with similar initial ore grade (159 mg/kg vs 160 mg/kg) returned a concentrate with 26.8% higher Sc content (289 mg/kg vs 228 mg/kg) with the same Sc recovery (93.8%) when compared to the sample used in the PEA.

The results of the work at SGS, with several smaller samples, were to confirm the best operating parameters for the LIMS and WHIMS and prepare the running of at least 500kg of ore to produce concentrate for the next phase of testing which is the presssure acid leach. The optimization work is supported by a $500,000 grant from Le Consortium de recherche et d'innovation en transformation metallique (CRITM), which is one of the nine industrial research sector groups (RSRIs) in Quebec.