Lithium development company, Critical Resources Limited (ASX:CRR) has obtained “exceptional” grade, low-impurity, coarse spodumene concentrate from its wholly-owned Mavis Lake Lithium project in Ontario, Canada.
“The initial concentrate results are excellent, highlighting the growing potential and significant opportunity for the development of Mavis Lake,” Managing Director, Alex Cheeseman, said.
“Metallurgical test work is a key step in advancing Mavis Lake along the development pathway. The results show that the high-grade mineralization at Mavis Lake, readily converts to high-grade, low impurity concentrate. Concentrate with this type of specification, commands a premium in the market.
“This has been achieved through a very simple flowsheet that has the potential to enhance project development and delivery opportunities by being low impact, low risk and low cost.”
Test Work Programme
The scope of the first tranche of test work was deliberately constrained to basic heavy liquid separation (HLS) and magnetic separation. The purpose of the test work was to provide a preliminary indication of the lithium beneficiation performance by utilising dense media separation (DMS).
HLS test work was undertaken by SGS Canada at their Lakefield facility in Ontario, with supervision in Australia by technical consultants MineScope Services. The sample suite for the test work program, was focused on representative samples from the Mavis Lake mineralized zone.
A total of 50 quarter-and-half core samples, from seven drill holes, were selected to provide a wide range of spatial locations, lithia grades, lithologies, spodumene intersection depths and also account for typical mining dilution.
The samples were delivered to SGS and compiled to create two composites, being a representative grade composite (SGS assays confirmed 1.2% Li2O) and a high-grade composite (SGS assays confirmed 1.6% Li2O).
The first tranche of testing was deliberately constrained to basic HLS and magnetic separation, with subsequent optimization and flotation test work now being scheduled. The HLS result shows a strong potential to use DMS as the primary beneficiation method.
Future Work
Further metallurgical test work is being scheduled to test the full potential of lithium liberation from Mavis Lake feed material. This may include HLS test work at finer crush sizes as well as flotation of ground middlings and tailings from raw material crushing/HLS processing.
The company has also commenced permitting to allow bulk sample collection which it intends to complete during the Canadian summer. The bulk samples will allow for the conduct of further additional and extensive test work programmes aimed at optimizing and rigorously testing future flowsheet design.
For further information please visit: https://www.criticalresources.com.au/
