Altech Chemicals produces competitive high purity alumina results

Highlights
· Analysis of Altech’s high purity alumina (HPA) samples confirmed lower levels of impurities compared to leading HPA competitors.
· Results of test work incorporated into process design for further optimization

Altech Chemicals Limited is pleased to announce that as part of the Bankable Feasibility Study (BFS) for its high purity alumina (HPA) project, it has successfully completed a further series of laboratory pilot plant test work program (test work), which simulated the proposed HPA processing plant. The test work was completed by its BFS team members, Simulus Engineers/Laboratories and TSW Analytical in Perth, Australia.

The test work involved bulk wet processing of the Meckering aluminous clay; calcination; acid leaching; crystallisation of aluminium chloride; two stages of purification; roasting for acid recovery; and final calcination to produce HPA.

HPA samples produced from the test work and competitor samples were tested by TSW Analytical. The results confirm the quality of Altech's product as better when compared to other HPA samples obtained from leading competitors.

The Company has incorporated the successful test work results into the optimisation of its process design. The optimisation areas include the removal of ion exchange units at the purification stages, replacement of evaporative crystallisation with the simpler HCl gas bubbling for crystallisation of aluminium chloride crystals, and counter current washing of aluminium chloride crystals across the three stages of crystallisation/purification. Removing these units from the Company's HPA process flowsheet has indicated a significant reduction of capital cost, as well as further simplification of the HPA plant.

The Company's HPA process flowsheet also incorporates wet processed filtered beneficiated aluminous clay feed in bulk bags from Western Australia. Overall, Altech's HPA flowsheet has remained essentially unchanged with areas of optimisation incorporated. These findings have been incorporated into 3D plant designs and plant layouts as part of the BFS.

Altech's managing director, Mr Iggy Tan, said "we are extremely pleased with the recent outcome of the laboratory pilot plant test work. The testwork results demonstrate that the Altech's "aluminous clay to HPA direct route" process can produce final HPA product that is comparable or better than key competitors in the market. The majority of current HPA producers use aluminium metal as their feedstock, which is a very expensive, in order to meet the final HPA product purity specification. We have continuously demonstrated that our process can meet the final purity specifications through the use of our inexpensive low impurity aluminous clay deposit.

The BFS work is progressing well and on-track to meet the targeted completion timeframe of Q-3, 2015", he concluded.