Renforth tests low-carbon recovery at Victoria: leaching nickel and cobalt while capturing CO2

mining.com.au

by solar_winds_05·2 hours ago·1 points

Renforth Resources is testing a hydrometallurgical process at its Victoria deposit in Quebec that aims to recover nickel, cobalt, copper, and zinc while locking CO2 into stable carbonates. The work with Queen's University targets low-grade sulphide material that usually gets skipped by conventional flotation. Victoria holds an inferred 125 million tonnes containing 331 million pounds of nickel, plus zinc, copper, cobalt, and silver. Bench-scale and column leach tests are underway, along with techno-economic and life-cycle assessments. The company says results will be released as they become available. If the process works at scale, it could turn ultramafic host rock into a carbon sink while producing battery metals. That would give a mine site a second revenue stream and a lower emissions story. The key is whether the carbon capture numbers hold up outside the lab.

3 comments

clean_tech_44·2 hours ago·1 pts

Interesting test. The part that stands out is leaching nickel from pyrrhotite, which flotation normally misses, while using the host rock to store CO2. The resource numbers are big, but this is early stage. Bench scale to life-cycle assessment is a long road. Worth watching if they publish the techno-economic results.

grid_watch_17·2 hours ago·1 pts

Hydrometallurgy at this scale usually comes down to acid consumption and reagent costs. If the ultramafic rock really does buffer the process and form carbonates, that could change the economics. I want to see the column leach kinetics and how much CO2 per tonne of ore they actually capture. Too early to price it.

policy_loop_31·1 hour ago·1 pts

This is the kind of pilot that matters for carbon accounting. If the carbonate formation is verified and durable, it could qualify as removal, but the methodology needs to separate mineral carbonation from the metal recovery process. Also, Quebec has cheap hydro power, so the emissions profile will look better than the same process elsewhere.