ONTARIO – Zenyatta Ventures, based in Thunder Bay, ON, has announced positive results from the pilot plant and metallurgical tests of samples from its Albany graphite project west of Hearst. Tests performed at SGS Canada's labs in Lakefield, ON, produced a high purity, highly crystalline graphite product.
Examined with a glow discharge mass spectrometer, the product showed less than 0.05% elemental impurities or >99.95% pure highly crystalline graphitic carbon (Cg). There were no deleterious inclusions, and the crystal structure was hexagonal with a real density of 2.25 g/cc. Samples have been sent to more than 20 end users for further evaluation.
The Albany graphite deposit is unusually in that it is a hydrothermal occurrence. That makes the resource very pure, easy to process, and commanding of the best prices. The deposit lies near surface, under glacial till, making open pit mining preferable. Click here to read the latest presentation about the project.
Zenyatta says additional tests are underway to make a high grade flotation concentrate feed and further optimized the purification process. A preliminary economic assessment of the Albany project is due in Q4 2014.
Comments
jimbob
Zenyatta Ventures is on the cusp of something very special. Although not yet a graphite producer, their unique hydrothermal discovery has already caught the eye of top scientists. In conjunction with attracting Dr. Bharat Chahar, the National Research Council of Canada has provided Zenyatta with access to their staff for metallurgy testing and a $350K grant.
Zenyatta Ventures has also garnered attention of scientists in the US. The US Department of Energy is funding two significant projects at Oak Ridge National Laboratory where Zenyatta is identified as a raw material supplier.
a) Manufacturability Study and Scale- Up for Large Format Lithium Ion Batteries
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/07/f17/es207_daniel_2014_o.pdf
b) Overcoming Processing Cost Barriers of High- Performance Lithium-Ion Battery Electrodes
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/07/f17/es164_wood_2014_o.pdf
The graphite deposit that Aubrey Eveleigh and Zenyatta found, has the potential to have profound innovative impacts to high-density storage, nuclear reactors, electric vehicles and other applications. It will be exciting to see watch the Zenyatta’s journey into to a graphite producer.