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Recovery of Critical and High-tech Minerals from Legacy Mine Materials: Part 2 Value Metals and REE in Recovery.

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posted on 2025-06-17, 02:27 authored by Will GatesWill Gates
Recovery of Critical and High-tech Minerals from Legacy Mine Materials: Part 2 Value Metals and REE in Recovery.

Funding

Recovery of critical and high-tech minerals from legacy mine materials: Part 2 Value metals and REE in recovery. | Funder: EcoTech Minerals Pty Ltd

History

Research statement

Background In a project co-funded by the New South Wales Government’s Critical Minerals and High-Tech Metals Activation fund and EcoTech Minerals, recovery of critical and high-tech minerals from abandoned and legacy mine sites in regional NSW was undertaken to evaluate through proof of concept and first-step scale-up testing, the feasibility of using chemical and electro-chemical methods to concentrate and recover different metal products (in either liquid or solid form) from a variety of run-of-mine tailings. Contribution The tailings materials (sulfides, oxides, silicates) selected for assessment were in various stages of current processing capabilities (e.g. gold recovery plant operations) from EcoTech’s legacy Broula King gold mine operations (near Cowra, NSW) and Fosterville gold mine (near Bendigo, Vic). Leaching tests were performed to determine the relative abundance of critical and high-tech minerals, including rare earth elements in different source materials, including oxides (Fosterville tailings) and silicates (Broula King tailings). Significance The Broula King tailings has recoverable value in gold (Au), aluminium (Al), potassium (K) and critical minerals including magnesium (Mg), zinc (Zn), antimony (Sb) and rubidium (Rb). Additionally, rare earth metals such as cerium (Ce) and neodymium (Nd) could potentially be extracted. The Fosterville tailings had an elevated residual, and recoverable, gold (Au) content aluminium (Al), potassium (K) and critical minerals including, magnesium (Mg), antimony (Sb), with significant amounts of arsenic (As) lead (Pb) and sulfate (S).

Editor/Contributor(s)

MacLeod A, Perera I, Basta H, Pozo-Gonzalo C, Somers A, Kerr R

Publisher

Deakin University

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