High grade vanadium upgrade to Venus’ Youanmi ores
Date: Oct 17, 2018
Venus Metals has further improved the attractiveness of its Youanmi vanadium project in the Murchison region of WA with preliminary beneficiation test work strongly increasing the grade of an oxide composite sample.
At a coarse crush size, simple rejection of fines increased the grade from 0.58% V2O5 to 0.8% V2O5 whilst recovering close to 80% of the contained vanadium.
This work also allowed more than 40% of the mass to be rejected, which could in turn reduce the downstream processing volume and acid consumption during processing of the ores.
Venus said this suggests that Youanmi oxide ore can be significantly beneficiated without substantial grinding, allowing the company to avoid the significant capital and operating cost associated with milling.
This is thanks in no small part to the deeply weathered, crumbly, soft and friable mineralised ore zones noted from the Youanmi deposit.
The company will complete hydrometallurgical studies on a beneficiated sample to assess direct vanadium extraction using sulphuric acid leaching, without the need to roast at high temperatures.
