Queensland-based Lava Blue has faced down an embarrassment of options in the emerging critical minerals industry.

With both a quality high purity alumina (HPA) resource in the state’s north and technology that promises to help fill a growing deficit in western production, they’ve chosen to concentrate on the latter.

HPA is a pure, high-grade form of non-metallurgical alumina or aluminium oxide (Al2O3). 

HPA possesses properties such as corrosion and scratch resistance, high brightness and an ability to withstand high temperatures.

It enjoys a growing range of applications in lithium-ion batteries, smartphones, lighting, electric vehicles, solar panels, and medical technology.

Lava Blue discovered its resource by pleasant surprise.

The business started life as the Mount Rosey Mining Company exploring the historical sapphire fields in the volcanic province of Lava Plains near Mount Garnet and in the process identified an area of aluminium-rich kaolin clay.

Main photo above: Mount Rosey Mining Company mine camp and base for exploration on Lava Plains.

In collaboration with Queensland University of Technology, the company produced its first HPA from the deposit in 2018. 

The exercise opened up a range of possibilities for Lava Blue, managing director Michael McCann said.

“Five years later we’ve perfected manufacturing high purity alumina from a number of unconventional sources including kaolin and waste materials from other mineral processing,” Mr McCann said.

“We’ve now got two licensees planning to use different feedstocks to make high purity alumina employing the methods we’ve developed …. We’ve got a third listed company doing test work.

“We went from originally considering being a primary producer of high purity alumina, to realising that there’s a tremendous sweet spot for production of HPA at facilities where there is already a another economic target mineral.

“A number of mineral processing developments in Australia have aluminium-rich waste streams from which high purity alumina can be manufactured.”

The company was finding opportunities in the emerging critical minerals processing sector, Mr McCann said.

“We got very good at managing contaminants while making high purity alumina,” he said. “As a result, we figured out we could make high purity alumina from aluminium-rich waste streams. 

“We are working with some of the emerging vanadium producers in northern Queensland. They have a target mineral that’s economic and in the process they create  an aluminium-rich waste stream. 

“You leverage off the CapEx invested to achieve production of your original target mineral …  and you get a very valuable co-product while reducing your waste stream.”

The production of electrochemical materials like HPA was a specialised area and unlike the traditional Australian mineral processing of producing concentrates or industrial metals, Mr McCann said.

Queensland Pacific Metals (QPM) was using the Lava Blue method as a bolt-on addition to its battery materials production plant in Townsville, Mr McCann said.

“QPM is seeking to become a producer of about 4000 tonnes per annum of HPA, alongside the multiple other outputs from their nickel-cobalt processing operation,” he said. 

“And because they’re going from a raw ore to a battery material, nickel sulphates, and cobalt sulphates, they are also committed to the high degree of quality controls and the testing required to maintain the standards of the materials they produce. 

“They’re not making something that goes out on the LME (London Metals Exchange), like, you know, nickel or cobalt metal. They’re producing a battery material.”

Lava Blue is privately owned and has a long-term collaborative research program with the Queensland University of Technology, where it is a developing a number of critical mineral and advanced materials downstream processes.

The company has shelved its plans for primary production on Lava Plains for the time being with Mr McCann saying; “for Lava Blue, the business of science is the fundamental enabler of the business of downstream minerals processing in Australia. 

“Rather than concentrate all our energy into becoming a primary producer of one or two materials, the coincidence of our skills and experience, and our incredible engagement with QUT, means we have found our own sweet spot as a developer of IP and cutting edge processes which we hope will launch a raft of successful Australian mineral processing enterprises,” he said.