Tag Archives: nickel sulphate

JordProxa crystallises battery chemical market potential with Albermarle, Terrafame orders

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Australia-based JordProxa Pty Ltd has recently delivered crystallisation plants for two major battery metal producers, solidifying, it says, its position in the growing new energy market.

JordProxa designed, fabricated and dispatched several large-scale orders to site, including an evaporator and two crystallisation plants to lithium producer Albemarle, in Western Australia, and nickel sulphate, cobalt sulphate and ammonium sulphate crystallisation plants to Terrafame, in Finland. The modular plants are now being installed in Western Australia and installation is underway on site in Finland with the last modules in transit (pictured above), JordProxa said.

The most recent crystallisation plant deliveries follow, in 2019, the arrival of a JordProxa nickel sulphate crystallisation plant at BHP’s Nickel West operations in Western Australia.

JordProxa Managing Director, John Warner, says the rapid uptake of battery-electric vehicles has led to a surge in demand for battery chemicals and associated technologies.

“Battery chemical producers need a technology provider that can meet and exceed the demands of product purity, with a focus on continued process improvement, to keep up with changing product specifications,” Warner said.

“JordProxa understands the process fundamentals that influence product quality through evaporation and crystallisation. We combine the project delivery skills and global footprint of Jord and Proxa and are perfectly positioned to deliver state of the art plant solutions for ultra-pure battery chemicals at large tonnage scales.”

He added: “We leverage an established network of fabrication alliances and modular design capabilities. This allows us to deliver key assemblies that are tested in the workshop before they are dispatched and installed on site. Our aim is to optimise project delivery time while minimising project risk.”

Jord International CEO, Angus Holden, said he was pleased the group is demonstrating its technical and operational expertise in the new energy market.

“Our track record over 50 years of business demonstrates that we can successfully design and build reliable plants with tangible process benefits,” he said.

“This important crystalliser work from JordProxa delivers on our goal of supporting clean energy technologies and is generating a new long-term, sustainable revenue stream. It has helped our group achieve a record revenue for the 2020 financial year, aided by other new areas of business, including enhanced minerals beneficiation and topside modules for offshore gas fields.”

BHP nears nickel sulphide production in Western Australia

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BHP appears to be very much on board the battery minerals train after confirming this week at the Diggers and Dealers conference in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, that it was likely to become a nickel sulphate producer within the next year.

The company is currently in the process of developing a nickel sulphate line to its Nickel West Kwinana refinery in Western Australia. The first stage project, to 100,000 t/y, will start to come online from April 2019, and the company has plans to double this to 200,000 t/y through stage two.

At the Diggers & Dealers conference on Monday, BHP Nickel West President Eduard Haegel said all regulatory approvals for the refinery project had been received and the project, which will rely heavily on automation, is starting to accelerate.

The company has a mini plant at the CSIRO facility in Perth where it has tested the process design to prove up around 100 kg/d of battery-grade product. These samples will shortly be distributed to potential future customers.

In addition to its future nickel sulphide production – Nickel West is already the largest producer of nickel powder and briquettes – the company is testing out producing cobalt sulphate within a mixed sulphate product.

Nickel West’s ambitions in the battery minerals space to 2040 are supported by a 6.2 Mt contained nickel resource base in Western Australia.

The Mt Keith Satellite project (Yakabindie) will be the first of a series of new developments at the company’s WA assets, with mining set to commence in the first half of next year.

Betheno, just north of Yakabindie, could be the company’s next Mt Keith development, with potential for production of iron-rich nickel sulphides, compared with other nearby deposits.

The company also has preliminary plans for two pit cutbacks at Mt Keith, while it has commenced a “concept” study to expand the Mt Keith concentrator from 40,000 t/y to 50,000 t/y. This is likely to require a third SAG mill to reach 45,000 t/y capacity and gradual replacement of flotation cells with larger capacity modern technology to hit 50,000 t/y.

Its 40,000 t/y Leinster concentrator, currently operating under capacity, also factors into this expansion with more ore set to initially come from the Venus deposit and, then, the B11 underground block cave development.