VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – VanadiumCorp Resource Inc. and Electrochem Technologies & Materials Inc. announced the filing of the national entry phases in Canada and Australia of the international patent application: WO 2018/152,628 (A1) METALLURGICAL AND CHEMICAL PROCESS FOR RECOVERING VANADIUM AND IRON VALUES FROM VANADIFEROUS TITANOMAGNETITE AND VANADIFEROUS FEEDSTOCKS”. Subsequent filings made in other key jurisdictions will be announced as patent office’s confirmations are received according to the official website of Vanadiumcorp.
According to a press release by Vanadiumcorp, the filing of the National Phase Entry in Australia will support Ultra Power Systems PTY Ltd goal of purchasing an Australian license of VanadiumCorp-Electrochem Processing Technology (“VEPT”) to expedite construction of the world’s first dedicated vanadium processing facility. (See VanadiumCorp News Release dated December 10, 2018). The filing of the National Phase Entry in Canada will support future plans for VanadiumCorp to address the North American market.
“The National Phase Entries represents a significant milestone for VEPT. VanadiumCorp and Electrochem are committed to near term commercial demonstration of VEPT. For vanadium specifically, VEPT addresses the largest industry challenges relating to price volatility and high carbon footprint in the current vanadium market. With VEPT, vanadium is recovered from vanadium-bearing feedstock efficiently with a lower carbon footprint. The patent applications filed in Canada and Australia will secure the vanadium supply, as these two jurisdictions are critical for future vanadium-titanium-iron production from vanadiferous titanomagnetite (“VTM”).” said Adriaan Bakker, CEO and President of VanadiumCorp.
The jointly owned VEPT describes a novel chemical process invented by Dr. Francois Cardarelli that addresses the recovery of vanadium, iron, titanium, and silica feedstocks such as vanadiferous titano-magnetite, iron ores and concentrates such as magnetite and hematite, vanadium containing wastes such as BOF-slags, and other industrial by-products also containing vanadium.
The process consists of digesting the vanadiferous feedstocks into concentrated sulfuric acid. The exothermic sulfation reaction allows the process to operate quasi-autogenously while producing a sulfation cake and hence minimizing the energy consumption drastically compared to smelting processing methods used by iron and steel producers. The dissolution of the sulfation cake with minimum amount of water yields a dense pregnant solution and reduces significantly the water usage compared to the conventional roasting process utilized by existing primary vanadium producers. After reducing electrochemically, the pregnant solution is subjected to chilling and crystallization yielding pure crystals of ferrous sulfate heptahydrate (also named copperas). The process further recovers titanium hydrolysate by hydrolysis from the iron depleted solution thereby producing a vanadium-bearing pregnant solution. The further concentration by evaporation and then a sequence of chilling and crystallization yields vanadyl sulfate as key precursor for the preparation of vanadium electrolyte (VE) used in vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB) or for preparing various vanadium chemicals.