A Queensland company is poised to step up to commercial production with a project to extract valuable rare earths and critical minerals from the aluminium industry’s red mud waste.

Alumtek Minerals is in talks with QAL in Gladstone to base an initial Stage 1 plant there after completing three years of successful bench trials and proof-of-concept work with SGS Metallurgy.

Alumtek Minerals has started the search for financial backers for its Project Reclaim in Gladstone following recent completion of feasibility studies.

Director Craig Wilson believes the business will beat explorers and traditional mining companies ‘by a country mile’ in getting into the production of commercial quantities of rare earth elements and other critical minerals in Queensland.

“One of the beauties of what we’re doing is if you want to go and start up a vanadium mine or a scandium mine or cobalt mine, that’s 10 years and lots of zeros ( money spent) and good luck,” he said.

“Whereas, we’ll be working with the waste products on approved sites with environmental permits and all the major title issues sorted out. So there is a much, much lower hurdle rate in terms of regulations and approvals and much lower capital intensity.

“And then the other benefit is we’re not just harvesting one mineral, but we’re focusing on a whole range of critical minerals and rare earths.”

Mr Wilson said Alumtek Minerals was expecting to process about 1000 tonnes of red mud per month initially at the QAL site, lifting to an annual rate of 100,000 tonnes by the end of the second year of production.

He said Alumtek Minerals’ Stage 1 plant would require only a three-month build before project commencement.

“So within a matter of months of capitalisation, we’ll be producing,” he said.

“And we’ve had some really, really good results. Some fairly high scandium outputs and one that was really positive was vanadium – and vanadium’s in increasing demand for long-life batteries and energy storage and other new economy products. We’re getting 582g per tonne of vanadium pentoxide.”

SGS Metallurgy recently completed a six-month testing and optimisation program of Alumtek Minerals’ proprietary technical process – known as AM Process No. 17.

This confirmed its ability to produce commercial quantities of hafnium, lithium, niobium, scandium, titanium, vanadium, and zirconium, along with saleable by-products and neutralised, re-useable waste in the form of activated bauxite.

Mr Wilson said AM Process No. 17 had produced, for example, 8.8kg of titanium dioxide per tonne of red mud in the pilot work and 259g per tonne of mixed rare earths.

In addition to producing critical minerals, Alumtek Mineral’s ‘circular economy’ proposition has the potential to ease a vast waste problem for the aluminium industry.

In Gladstone alone, Mr Wilson said the QAL site was estimated to hold about 110 million tonnes of red mud and Yarwun about 130 million tonnes.

“Australia is the world’s largest miner of bauxite and the sixth largest producer of aluminium. As a consequence, it’s got a huge amount of bauxite residue (from the Bayer treatment process),” he said.

While the red mud was not particularly noxious it was very alkaline and the sheer quantity to be dealt with made it a big issue for aluminium producers, he said.

Alumtek Minerals is also researching uses for the solid residue that remains after the extraction of critical minerals.

“We have positive chemical assessments of that final composition and it can be reused for various applications,” Mr Wilson said.

That solid residue – or activated bauxite – forms about 36 per cent of the process output and its use would complete the picture to totally recycle and reuse the red mud.

Other by-products include aluminium hydroxide, gypsum, silica and ferric oxide.

Alumtek Minerals is seeking to raise $9 million, including to build a Stage 1 plant in Gladstone and the remainder to advance its IP development and work with other sources of bauxite residue.

“We don’t know of anyone else in the world that is doing what we’re doing and is as advanced as we are,” Mr Wilson said.