ION4RAW Test Work Starts in Earnest

Wardell Armstrong International (WAI) has a significant role in a major EU funded Research and Innovation programme called Ion4raw funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 auspices. Although we are not coordinating the project (as we previously did with the FAME project) we still has a significant role as a Work Package Leader (for upstream processing) and as part of the overall management team.

This exciting project looks at the potential of novel technologies such as ionometallurgy (Deep Eutectic Solvents – DES) in the improved recovery of by product metals such as tellurium, silver, bismuth, antimony etc., from primary ores.

WAI plays a vital role – producing concentrates containing the valuable byproduct metals for other members of the consortium to deploy DES recovery techniques on. Without the steps undertaken in our mineral processing pilot plant at Wheal Jane in Cornwall the other partners wouldn’t have “real” concentrated ores to work on.

This work is in full swing with our lab successfully producing concentrate from ore provided by Ion4raw Partner ScotGold from the UK, and bulk samples of ores from Peru and Spain are eagerly awaited.

Our expertise, combined with the mineral processing pilot plant facilities, is not commonly available in Europe and WAI is now firmly established as a centre of excellence and in high demand – not only by our current industrial clients but by research consortia across Europe. By participating in these high profile, multi Partner, multi-national research projects we can keep at the forefront of technological advances and remain the Partner of choice for many mining clients.