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Benefits of the Technology
ExtrEL's Economic Benefits
The target feedstock for the ExtrEL process is not an expensive new ore body to be developed, but the sulphur-rich tailings waste streams from the concentrate mills of the modern and closed sulphidic-feed smelter operations at any location around the globe.
The ExtrEL technology has the potential to revolutionize the modern mining industry by:
Recovering economically significant tonnages of base metals such as nickel from surface mining industry waste dumps at relatively low costs
Producing economically significant tonnages of elemental sulphur or sulphuric acid from surface waste dumps as a by-product of the base metal extraction process
Recovering precious metals such as rhodium from pyrrhotite-rich surface waste dumps at relatively low costs
Converting environmental liabilities into more benign neutral drainage generation surface materials such as a building aggregate (fine sand for concrete and road construction usage) of minimal sulphur and metal content
Potential Reduction of Environmental Liabilities
There are many potential environmental benefits envisaged from a successful integration of the ExtrEL process in an operating pilot (EPP) or extraction plant. Some of these benefits are listed below:
Low energy requirements, especially when compared with smelter, expensive mill crushing and flotation system inputs, and rail/road/sea shipment of ore to a central mill site;
Recovery of H2S(g) with conversion to elemental sulphur (S) or sulphuric acid (H2SO4 ), all potentially marketable materials. The technologies are available from the oil and gas industries for integration into an EPP;
Conversion of FeCl3 in hydrochloric acid matrix to a high purity hematite, a saleable product, through pyrohydrolysis;
Possibility of co-extraction of occluded PGE's as Cl- complexes if in waste stream initially. Discussions with former industry chemists indicates, for example, that rhodium may be also more highly concentrated in the pyrrhotite tailings than in the modern smelter feeds in the Sudbury Basin;
Use of current industry wastes as feedstock for the ExtrEL extraction process which, if metal recovery efficiency is improved to over 90%, could produce a benign secondary tailings or paste backfill material. Such 'clean' tailings materials are currently being 'remined' from surface deposits for use as backfill of underground stopes;
Could produce a clean road or construction material feedstock, or potentially a siliceous sand for use in the glass industry;
Small plant footprint, possibly of modular construction in easily transportable segments;
Modular plant could be developed to run on remote mill sites, or abandoned pyrrhotite-rich TMA's, using renewable energy resources such as Wind-Power for operations, with expensive green-house gas emitting diesel generation systems as plant back-up only. There would thus be no need for expensive connection to the regional grid, and even a potential to sell any surplus energy to local remote community. This could create a unique synergy for the mining industry;
Potential low water requirement for process, with high probability of in-plant recycling and reuse; and
Recovery of significant quantities of process acids (HCl in the current development stage of ExtrEL) in the ion exchange module of the EPP. This is also a major cost-saving advantage of the ExtrEL process integration into an operational EPP.