Phalaborwa large-scale pilot plant performing as expected
London-listed Rainbow Rare Earths has announced that its recently commissioned large-scale pilot plant, in Johannesburg, is operating the optimised Phalaborwa primary flowsheet in line with expectations and has successfully produced about 2 kg of a high-grade mixed rare earth hydroxide, which is a commercial product.
As previously announced, the company notes that the mixed rare earth product produced by the primary flowsheet has a higher grade than the industry norm, being about 55% total rare earth oxide (TREO), versus the Chinese specifications for a mixed rare earth carbonate at about 42% to 44% TREO.
The production of this high-grade product has been confirmed as a suitable feed stream into the planned solvent extraction (SX) separation circuit in order to produce neodymium/praseodymium (NdPr) oxide and a samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium and yttrium (SEG+) product that is rich in medium and heavy rare earth elements (REE), each at +99.5% purity.
By delivering these separated products, Rainbow says it intends to capture more of the value chain by going further downstream than many REE projects.
“This is an important derisking event for the project, as the large-scale pilot plant is performing as expected and will now produce increasing quantities of the high-grade mixed REE hydroxide.
“The high purity of this product positions it as an ideal feed stream for the planned SX separation process in order to produce the NdPr oxide and SEG+ products of the desired +99.5% purity,” says CEO George Bennett.
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