Mount Ridley Mines files second Selectro patent to target industrial metals recovery

Australia’s Mount Ridley Mines is expanding its Selectro processing technology beyond critical minerals, with a second provisional patent application targeting industrial feedstocks such as bauxite and potentially opening new licensing and partnership opportunities.

Mount Ridley Mines Ltd (ASX: MRD) has lodged a second provisional patent application for its proprietary Selectro hydrometallurgical technology, seeking to protect an adapted version of the process designed to recover metals from industrial feedstocks.

Filed on October 15 2026, with IP Australia through its wholly owned subsidiary, Mount Ridley Tech, the application follows the company's initial Selectro patent filing in August 2026. The new application covers an adaptation of the technology in which the reagent molecule has been adjusted to suit the different mineralogy and metal composition of industrial materials.

This is a milestone expansion for Mount Ridley, whose original Selectro application focuses on recovering scandium, rare earth elements and gallium from clay-hosted material at its Grass Patch project in Western Australia.

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Bauxite testing strengthens Selectro's industrial potential

The second patent application follows encouraging results from Selectro's first third-party test on bauxite, conducted on a composite sample from Australian Silica Quartz Group's Darling Range project in Western Australia.

The test, conducted by ALS Limited, reported aluminium recovery of approximately 92 per cent and iron recovery of 97 per cent. More than 90 per cent of the silica remained in a small, pH-neutral residue, highlighting the technology's potential to separate valuable metals while producing a different residue profile from conventional alumina refining.

The bauxite test was the first application of Selectro to feedstock outside Mount Ridley's Grass Patch Complex and the first under its third-party testing programme. The company achieved the reported recoveries before optimising the chemistry specifically for bauxite.

Mount Ridley’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Allister Caird, has said, “We have taken steps to protect this second application of the Selectro™ chemistry, which is a prudent measure given the results in its first test on bauxite have increased our confidence in the broader applicability of Selectro™.”

The result broadens the potential application of Selectro beyond Mount Ridley's own mineral resources. However, further testing will be required to establish whether the process can consistently deliver comparable recoveries across different feedstocks and at a commercially viable scale.

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A separate patent pathway for industrial feedstocks

The original Selectro technology was developed to extract critical minerals from the regolith-hosted material at Grass Patch. The second application protects an adapted chemical formulation intended for industrial feedstocks with different mineralogical characteristics.

Keeping the applications separate could allow Mount Ridley to advance each technology stream on its own development timeline. It could also enable the company to explore licensing or partnership opportunities for industrial applications without tying those arrangements directly to the intellectual property associated with Grass Patch.

The approach potentially widens Selectro's commercial reach to feedstocks containing multiple recoverable metals. In the case of bauxite, the company's broader objective is to investigate the recovery of aluminium, iron, gallium and titanium, rather than leaving potentially valuable material in processing residues.

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