Apr 26 2017
Zenyatta Ventures Ltd. today is pleased to announce that the completed flotation pilot testing portion of the ongoing metallurgical work has yielded successful results. The metallurgical testing is part of the pre-feasibility work for the Albany Graphite Deposit located in Northeastern Ontario, Canada.
Purification test-work is currently underway using concentrate derived from the pilot flotation plant and this will culminate in a pilot purification plant. Once the final metallurgical testing is complete, the process flow sheets and associated engineering data will then be fed into the engineering part of the on-going pre-feasibility study.
Mr. James Jordan, P.Eng., Project Manager for Zenyatta stated, "We are very pleased with the results to date as they not only surpassed flotation performance achieved in the previous pilot but also exceeded the optimized bench scale tests. At a target grade of 85% graphite, flotation recovery is projected to be approximately 90%. The graphite concentrate will be fed to the purification process to yield approximately 99.9% carbon purity. Due to the unique igneous origin of the Albany graphite mineralization, there are no other truly equivalent deposits on which we can model our process. We are therefore continually learning more about its distinctive response to various flotation parameters and especially to the circuit arrangement."
The metallurgical work is being carried out at SGS Canada Inc. ("SGS") in Lakefield, Ontario under the guidance of Mr. Jordan. The completed flotation pilot testing work was performed on two composites from the East Pipe and the West Pipe of the Albany graphite deposit. Significantly, results show consistent improvement in metallurgical performance with similar concentrate grades and recoveries obtained from both the East and West Pipe graphite zone material. The upcoming pilot purification plant will also produce additional high-purity graphite marketing material for testing by global corporations and academic institutions for Li-ion battery, fuel cell and graphene applications.
This metallurgical pilot program will be on-going for the next several months and completed in the first half of 2017. The engineering and environmental assessment parts of the pre-feasibility study are anticipated to commence in the 3rd quarter of 2017. The proposed work will include drilling geotechnical holes for the pit design and hydrogeology holes for ground water testing and monitoring.