Surefire Resources NL (ASX:SRN) has tapped Lava Blue Ltd to assess the Victory Bore Vanadium Project’s potential to produce high-purity alumina (HPA), having identified high levels of aluminium oxide in waste rock on the tenure.
HPA is an industrial mineral produced from aluminium oxide feedstock, which when refined to very high levels of purity (N4 or greater than 99.99%) is suitable for applications in lithium-ion battery anodes and LED glass.
The Victory Bore deposit waste rock holds exceptionally high grades of aluminium oxide, up to 31.4%, which could provide high-quality feedstock for beneficiation into 4N HPA.
Potential for “significant additional value”
“The extensive high grades of aluminium oxide in the waste rock at our Victory Bore Vanadium Project make this stand out from other vanadium resources,” Surefire Resources managing director Paul Burton said.
“If the test-work is successful, this could potentially add significant additional value to the Victory Bore asset.
“This would further enhance this project as one the world’s largest and potentially richest undeveloped vanadium resources.”
Surefire is progressing this path in parallel with its plans to produce high-purity vanadium for the emerging Vanadium Redox Flow battery sector.
LED market growth
The LED market, one of the main target markets for HPA, is expected to grow faster than the currently estimated compounding annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11% due to an impending global ban on compact fluorescent light bulbs from November this year, potentially driving significant growth in LEDs as an alternative.
The lithium-ion battery market’s demand for HPA is also expected to increase over the coming decade.
Demand was estimated at 80,000 tonnes per annum in 2022, but with a CAGR of 20%, that number could reach 200,000 tonnes by 2030.
Lava Blue is a materials science company that has developed a proprietary process for HPA production. They have built a demonstration plant in Redlands in Brisbane to demonstrate a scaled-up modified hydrochloric acid leach process for production of HPA from a variety of aluminium-rich materials.