Join our daily newsletter At The Bell to receive exclusive market insights
- Emerging battery metals company Ardea Resources (ARL) has been awarded a $2 million research and development (R&D) tax offset
- The offset was awarded for state-of-the-art work on nickel-cobalt metallurgical programs at the company’s Goongarrie project in Western Australia
- Ardea’s work is aimed at the extraction and processing of a wide range of minerals into battery-grade products
- While there’s still a long road ahead to first production, the extra $2 million provides a handy bonus to Ardea’s cash reserves, and a funding runway for further R&D work
- Ardea Resources is trading 3.2 per cent higher today at 32 cents per share
Emerging battery metals company Ardea Resources (ARL) has been awarded a $2 million research and development (R&D) tax offset from the Australian government.
The offset was awarded for state-of-the-art work on nickel-cobalt metallurgical programs at the company’s Goongarrie project in Western Australia.
Aiming high
The advanced research work Ardea is undertaking is aimed at becoming a key cathode metal supply source for new battery technologies.
The company’s 2019 research programs (for which the offset was awarded) incorporated a wide range of activities focused on developing key processes relevant to battery metal mining and production.
Ardea’s pilot plant processed 15 tonnes of material from Goongarrie in a pilot-scale high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) circuit, with the resulting product undergoing various bench-scale experiments to produce battery-grade nickel and cobalt sulphates.
The final products were shipped to potential offtakers and found to meet quality requirements for use in battery manufacture.
Ardea also completed advanced geo-metallurgical work to generate a predictive tool to hypothesise future HPAL plant performance across a wide range of minerals.
This predictive process may help in the potential to value-add to the production of nickel and cobalt sulphates, via the co-production of other by-products including manganese sulphate, scandium trioxide, vanadium pentoxide, high purity alumina and rare earth elements.
One key part of the process was in identifying waste by-products that could be used as a neutraliser in the HPAL process, with the potential to significantly reduce chemical costs.
Powering the future
Ardea will continue its R&D work to refine its processes ahead of commercialisation.
While there’s still a long road ahead to first production, the extra $2 million provides a handy bonus to Ardea’s cash reserves, which now stand at around $10.4 million.
This cash provides a funding runway for continued R&D and other work required to advance the company’s greater Kalgoorlie nickel project to becoming a key cathode metal supplier for the battery industry.
Ardea Resources is trading 3.2 per cent higher today at 32 cents per share as at 3:40 pm AEST.
