Mount Ridley Mines achieves high critical mineral recoveries via Selectro process

Mount Ridley Mines has reported significant technical milestones following metallurgical testing of its proprietary Selectro leaching process at the Grass Patch Complex in Western Australia. The in-house developed technology achieved substantially higher recoveries of critical minerals compared to conventional hydrochloric acid (HCl) leaching.

Testing conducted by independent laboratory Nagrom on historical drill samples showed Selectro delivered recoveries between 77% and 83% for heavy rare earth elements, including dysprosium, terbium, and yttrium. Notably, the process achieved an 80% recovery rate for scandium, far exceeding the approximately 25% recovery rate seen with HCl. Additionally, the Selectro process recovered an average of 56% gallium, whereas the HCl baseline recovered no gallium from the same samples.

Managing Director Allister Caird stated that the results validate the polymetallic nature of the Grass Patch system, demonstrating that heavy rare earths, scandium, and gallium can potentially be recovered through a single processing circuit. The company intends to focus future work on optimizing reagent use and improving scandium recovery through further process refinement.