White Mountain Titanium Corp. has reported that good progress has been made in Stage 1 of the pilot plant program and that the program is on time and on budget. Working with Centro de Investigacion Minera y Metalurgica Tecnologia y Servicios (CIMM), Cytec Chile Limitada and AMEC-Cade, all of Santiago, Chile, the company has completed the gravity pre-concentration step of the Stage 1 program and has moved on to the next step, flotation. Gravity pre-concentration allows for the rejection of feedstock that is not titanium rich. By introducing this step at the start of the process flow sheet, lower volumes of higher grade feedstock pass to the flotation step resulting in an increase in plant efficiencies. The grade of the gravity pre-concentrate produced at CIMM was over 8% TiO2 and approximately 200kg of this high grade feedstock have been delivered to Cytec’s laboratory facility for the flotation step. Cytec are investigating 15 different flotation reagents and collectors relevant to TiO2 mineral processing in order to optimize process recovery and concentrate grade. Results from the Cytec investigations are expected within a few weeks.
