Latest results continue to highlight the potential for west Tennessee to be a major source of conventional and sustainable rare earth minerals, and for Hyperion to be a major player in the US rare earth supply chain.

Hyperion Metals’ rare-earth concentrate flotation test work has identified 97pc overall recovery of rare earth minerals at the Titan Project in Tennessee, US.

The company says results provide the potential for a higher-grade rare-earth product than could be achieved without flotation, with successful flotation of rare earth minerals as a preliminary processing stage providing significant potential benefits to a future mineral separation plant design, which include:

  • Design simplification compared to the separation of rare earth minerals at later processing stages; and
  • Reduction of potential contamination of downstream products, including titanium and zircon.

Hyperion (ASX:HYM) said that the extraction of highly valuable rare earths as a preliminary processing stage enables optionality in product strategy and plant development, including phased capital development.

‘Outstanding potential’

Managing director and CEO Anastasios Arima said these latest results are a significant event in the development of Hyperion’s mineral business.

“Test work highlighting the simple separation of a rare earth concentrate product stream at the front end allows for significant optionality potential in process flow sheet design,” he said.

“These results and the recent announcement of our maiden mineral resource estimate continue to showcase the outstanding potential for Hyperion to develop a major source of critical mineral supply in this major untapped region in west Tennessee.”

Valuable rare earth product

Results were consistent with prior test work undertaken in August, with neodymium and praseodymium making up 21.3% of rare earths, and the highly valuable terbium and dysprosium making up 1.9% of rare earths.

At current spot pricing, the potential basket price of the rare earth oxide products is ~US$50,000/t.

Hyperion says the latest results continue to highlight the potential for west Tennessee to be a major source of conventional and sustainable rare earth minerals and for the company to be a major player in the US rare earth supply chain.

Flotation test work program

The test work program consisted of a 1 tonne bulk sample from the Camden deposit being sent to Mineral Technologies for processing.

A heavy mineral concentrate (HMC) was generated using conventional feed preparation and wet gravity separation, with primarily spirals and a wet shaking table used for final stage upgrade.

The HMC was processed through froth flotation to float the rare earth minerals from the other constituents, creating a rare earth stream and a HMC stream.

The rare earth stream was further upgraded on a wet shaking table to increase the concentration of a final rare earth mineral concentrate, with the HMC stream upgraded on a wet shaking table prior to being processed through a conventional mineral separation program, which is expected to be complete around the end of November.

Assays were conducted by Bureau Veritas in Perth, Australia, with standard XRF mineral sand assays used plus laser ablation/ICPMS for determination of individual rare earths.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Hyperion Metals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.