Podium Minerals Limited (ASX: POD) is making strong progress in identifying its mineral processing pathway and developments in the recovery optimization programme for its Parks Reef Platinum Group Metals (PGM) Project in Western Australia.
Highlights
• Exciting breakthroughs in mineral processing under certain atmospheric leach conditions, with world leading platinum recoveries of >90% achieved.
• Ongoing mineral processing test work has shown the ability to increase metal recovery through the optimization of Podium’s atmospheric leach process, material improvements have been achieved in the recoveries of platinum, iridium, nickel and cobalt associated with sulphide ore.
• Modification of leaching variables such as temperature and oxidative conditions demonstrate improvement in metal recoveries. These improvements are in line with Podium’s processing strategy, with the aim to optimize project returns.
Since the announcement in November 2022 of preliminary mineral processing outcomes, the development of Podium’s mineral processing strategy continues to be a key focus. This optimization process aims to maximize metal recoveries by testing variables in the flotation and atmospheric leaching circuits.
Twenty-one leach optimization tests have been completed, delivering improved metal recoveries for both oxide and sulphide material, which continues to unlock further value for the project.
“I’m pleased to update shareholders on the significant progress on Podium’s processing pathway. Our primary focus in the last few months has been to improve metal recoveries, and we can now report a number of exciting successes in this area,” Managing Director and CEO, Sam Rodda, said.
“Significantly, a material uplift in platinum recoveries has been achieved at laboratory scale with the use of atmospheric leaching. Recoveries of greater than 90% have been achieved for both oxide and sulphide ores under certain testing conditions. This represents a 30% uplift on previous stated oxide recoveries and an enormous 50% increase in previous reported platinum recoveries.
“Platinum and iridium recoveries will be an important focus for Podium as we look to maximize our ability to support the global hydrogen economy and establish a new Australian critical minerals industry.
“Platinum and Iridium are crucial to the high performance of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolysers required to create Green Hydrogen. These metals also play a fundamental role in Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology used to generate power from Hydrogen and driving fuel cell electric vehicles.”
The Parks Reef PGM deposit has two distinct resource domains, an oxide zone that resides from the surface to approximately 45m deep, and a sulphide ore zone that starts at approximately 45m and continues to the base of the resource. The resource has been drilled to 500m below the surface and remains open at depth. The Parks Reef deposit hosts five element (5E) PGMs comprising: Platinum (Pt), Palladium (Pd), Rhodium (Rh), Iridium (Ir) and Gold (Au) as well as the base metals of Copper (Cu), Nickel (Ni) and Cobalt (Co).
Podium’s mineral processing strategy remains focused on optimizing the following key elements:
• Developing saleable products for PGMs and base metals within the context of existing global smelting and refining facilities;
• Developing a technical and economic solution for near surface oxide and deeper sulphide PGM material;
• Optimal metal recoveries to meet future demand trends and maximize project financials; and
• Consideration of innovative downstream processing options to allow Podium to bypass the high-energy, high carbon footprint smelter stage.
The Podium mineral processing work has delivered strong results from the 21 leach tests recently completed.
For further information please visit: https://podiumminerals.com/
