Cadoux Ltd (ASX:CCM, OTCQB:FYIRF) has received an $848,880 R&D tax incentive offset payment as the emerging developer of critical minerals projects progresses its innovative process design to produce high-quality, high-purity alumina (HPA), and its Minhub downstream rare earth production strategy in Darwin.
The company is positioning itself to be a significant producer of two key materials for global electrification — HPA and rare earth minerals — to take advantage of growing demand in rapidly developing high-tech product markets and contributing to the global momentum for a decarbonised future.
Both the HPA and ‘Minhub’ projects align strongly with Australia’s critical minerals policy by inducing new supply of essential critical minerals and creating value adding, new sovereign supply chains for strategic minerals.
HPA strategy
The R&D funds will be directed towards the ongoing development of Cadoux’s HPA strategy for the fully integrated, low-risk, low-cost production of high purity 4N (99.99%) and 5N (99.999%) alumina materials. They will also support Cadoux in continuing its downstream HPA-related product development.
Cadoux’s innovative process design has enabled the integrated production of high-quality HPA up to 5N purity at robust economically sustainable operating costs. This has been demonstrated through a pilot plant and extensive market studies.
The company is now looking to commercially develop that process through a staged development which includes a 1,000 tonne per annum small scale production facility in Western Australia followed by a 10,000 tonne per annum full scale commercial plant.
Minhub Project
Cadoux is also opening up a new supply chain for Australia’s emerging rare earths and mineral sands projects through the development of the Minhub Project, which will include a mineral separation and rare earth minerals processing facility in Darwin.
Minhub aims to process third party mineral concentrate and supply rare earth rich xenotime and monazite mineral products to select markets.
This includes potentially supplying Arafura Rare Earths Ltd (ASX:ARU, OTC:ARAFF) with the rare earth mineral xenotime, enabling a significant increase in the supply of critical magnet feed rare earth metals dysprosium and terbium for key markets such as electric vehicles.
R&D tax incentive initiative
The R&D tax incentive is an Australian Federal Government initiative, jointly administered by AusIndustry and the ATO, under which eligible companies can receive cash refunds of up to 43.5% of all eligible expenditure on designated research and development projects.
The eligible R&D activities include HPA project development as well as technical work conducted on advancing potential customer requested product finish specifications for its HPA and value add specialty downstream applications, such as HPA coatings for lithium-ion batteries, sapphire glass production for LEDs and microchips for computing.
The $848,880 offset payment relates to Cadoux’s expenditure on the development of the HPA project during the last financial year.