Devon, England-based ReOre Technologies has lined up £1.4 million of government funding to apply its EcoMineral hydrometallurgical process to recover nickel, cobalt and copper from sulphide mineral concentrates supplied by Aberdeen Minerals.
Privately-owned Aberdeen has the Arthrath project in north-east Scotland, where it has been exploring for nearly a decade and completed a maiden drilling program in 2023.
ReOre, launched by parent Altilium Clean Technology earlier this year, has partnered with the Camborne School of Mines to deliver its planned two-year CASCADE project. The University of Exeter school will also lead work on “legacy and new UK waste streams” using the ReOre EcoMineral technology and will undertake Arthrath sample characterisation and mineral processing testwork.
ReOre says EcoMineral uses a biodegradable, non-toxic chemistry to recover metals from “challenging feedstocks” including electronic waste and mine waste. The process is said to work at ambient pressure and low temperatures.
Funding is from the UK Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade’s Battery Innovation Programme.
“Developing responsible domestic primary resources alongside recycling will be essential for the UK to build a resilient and competitive battery materials supply chain,” said ReOre business lead Toby French.
“CASCADE is an opportunity to connect domestic mineral resources with innovative UK processing technology and downstream battery manufacturing. Our ambition is to demonstrate a sovereign pathway that keeps more of the critical minerals value chain here in Britain – from resource extraction and refining through to the production of high-value battery materials.”
Aberdeen Minerals CEO Fraser Gardiner said developing and scaling environmentally sound processing technologies for UK sourced nickel-cobalt raw materials could open up “sustainable pathways for mineral development in Aberdeenshire and elsewhere and is a crucial step to securing truly sovereign supply chains for strategic industrial sectors”.
Camborne School of Mines associate professor of sustainable mining Dr Rich Crane said sustainable extraction and processing was the key to unlocking the country’s untapped mineral resources.
