Through its wholly owned subsidiary Suretec Solutions Pty Ltd, Surefire Resources NL (ASX:SRN) has filed an Australian provisional patent application with IP Australia to protect its proprietary vanadium recovery process.
Economical process
Surefire's metallurgical application should achieve significant reductions in capital and operating costs as no heat treatment is required, unlike traditional vanadium recovery processes which require pre-heat treatment from a kiln at temperatures of 1100 C.
The process is a big improvement on existing vanadium recovery processes, adding value to the company’s Victory Bore Vanadium Project.
Surefire appointed Perth-based patent attorney WRAYS for a review of the new process including a search on the subject matter of the invention.
After it had conducted these checks, WRAYS confirmed lodgement at IP Australia, the government agency that protects intellectual property such as patents, copyright and design.
High recoveries
Surefire’s test work has thus far achieved high recoveries of vanadium and titanium along with high recoveries of base metals from titaniferous feedstocks.
This new application will underpin future international patent filings to secure Surefire’s intellectual property.
In May 2023 the company appointed METS Engineering to undertake an assessment of potential for recovery of a high-purity vanadium oxide in liquid form, from which a clean high purity vanadium electrolyte could be produced for use in the emerging vanadium battery sector in Australasia.
Surefire announced the results of the laboratory-scale leach test work earlier this year, achieving a remarkable extraction for vanadium of 91% and 88% titanium after a 96-hour leach directly from Victory Bore magnetite concentrate.
The leach process was applied to pre-treated concentrate allowing the leach process to scavenge effectively. Further laboratory testwork improved the results achieving a 97% recovery of vanadium after only 24 hours.
The process is expected to have a significant positive impact on capital and operating cost benefits.
The next test-work phase will ready the company to produce final products of vanadium pentoxide and vanadium electrolyte from this leach process and is expected to deliver results in the coming months.
Next steps
Surefire has commissioned METS to produce test-work plans for the proprietary leach process to be applied to a much larger sample of between 250 and 500 kilograms.
From this, final products of vanadium pentoxide and vanadium electrolyte will be produced and will be assessed for grade and quality.
The subsequent production of vanadium pentoxide directly from a leach solution is a well-established scalable commercial process producing high-purity products.
The company is also assessing the potential to license the process for use on other vanadium resources subject to test-work results.