GreenRoc Mining plc reported purity of 99.97%, exceeding electric vehicle industry requirements, from tests on spheronised graphite produced from its Amitsoq project in Greenland.
ALKALINE TESTS
Technical consultants ProGraphite GmbH conducted alkaline purification using sodium hydroxide to test a sample from the lower graphite layer (LGL), successfully spheronised last autumn.
The purity requirement is 99.95% for spheronised graphite used in the manufacture of anodes for electric vehicles.
ProGraphite previously performed tests in 2021, when it reached a high degree of purification using hydrofluoric acid, which is the standard method for purification but toxic.
The consultants found that the required purity could also be achieved using sodium hydroxide.
HYDROPOWER
GreenRoc added that its chief executive Stefan Bernstein had met the local community and the company’s specialist sustainability consultant, Niras, in preparation for the Amitsog social impact assessment.
He also met project stakeholders including the local Amitsoq community, the minister for Mineral Resources and Justice, and the newly established government body NunaGreen.
NunaGreen aims to help Greenland with the transition from fossil fuels to hydropower to underpin Power-to-X plants and other possible energy-intensive plants, some of which could be in the mineral sector.
“Other options presented were a combination of smaller hydropower plants supplemented with wind turbines and tidal-water turbines, all of which could be exciting solutions delivering a CO2-neutral mining operation at Amitsoq,” added GreenRoc.
ILMENITE
Elsewhere in its Greenland projects, the company plans to test coarser grain fraction of > 1mm from drill samples at Thule Black Sands (TBS) ilmenite project, before final assays and resource assessment.
The company initially discarded material larger than 1mm from analytical work, although it potentially contained “appreciable amounts of ilmenite” locked up in a dolerite matrix.
“This locked-up ilmenite will accordingly be subjected to a grinding, attritioning and a separation test work programme to determine whether it is recoverable to produce and in what grade and quality.”
GreenRoc expects to begin the work by the end of January 2023, with results due six to eight weeks later.
Following completion, the company will report final assay results from the drill programme and finalise a revised resource assessment for TBS.
Alba Mineral Resources plc holds a 50.6% majority interest in GreenRoc.