(TheNewswire)
Company announcesintent to respond to Canadian Government call for critical mineraldevelopment proposals; Anticipates pilot plant will be operationalthis summer
TORONTO, ON – TheNewswire - May 18, 2022 – BacTech EnvironmentalCorporation (CSE:BAC ) , ( OTC:BCCEF ) , ( FSE: 0BT1) (“ BacTech ” or the “ Company ”), acommercially proven, environmental technologycompany delivering eco-friendly bioleaching and remediation solutionsfor precious metal and critical mineral recovery , is pleased to provide an update withrespect to the Company’s proposed pyrrhotite bioleaching initiativefor nickel, cobalt, sulphur, and iron waste recovery.
Dr. NadiaMykytczuk , a leader in biominingtechnology, member of BacTech’s advisory board and Interim CEO andPresident of MIRARCO Mining Innovation, is leading the development andbuilding of a bioleach pilot plant to be located in Sudbury, Canada.Working closely with BacTech’s scientific team, the plant is for thetesting of bioleaching processes like the Company’s proposedapproach for pyrrhotite treatment. The pilot plant will simulate acommercial bioleach process consisting of a cascade of reactorsoperating on a continuous basis. The plant will also include front andback-end equipment operating as separate units for capturingadditional revenue sources beyond nickel-cobalt (e.g., elementalsulphur; iron as feed for steel making and oxidised residue conversionfor construction materials).
The proposed pilot plant is expected to be operationalby July 2022. One reactor has been 100% completed to date and is beingused to test select concentrates from BacTech’s Tenguel project.
On April 7, 2022, BacTech announced it hadfiled a provisional patent application documenting its proposed approach to bioleaching pyrrhotitematerials. Pyrrhotite is a very volatile sulphide mineral containingnickel and cobalt values that oxidizes rapidly and produces largeamounts of iron and sulphur components as by-products which aretypically considered as wastes.
The pilot plant is part of Dr. Mykytczuk’s largereffort to establish the future Centre for Mine Waste Biotechnology, afacility focussed on scale-up and commercialization of biotechnologiesto help extract value and reduce impacts from mine wastes. Theobject is to use this pilot facility to obtain the design datanecessary to establish a fully integrated tonnage-based demonstrationplant, which would then lead towards full-scale commercialisation. Theproduction of value-added materials from the iron and sulphur andoxidised residue, which would normally be disposed as wastes,differentiate this process from other pyrrhotite bioleach endeavourswhich only target nickel and cobalt production.
On May 11, 2022, the Canadian governmentannounced a $10.9M fund to assist with the construction of pilotplants and projects to support the development of critical mineralvalue chains . The Sudbury Basin hostsup to 100M tonnes of pyrrhotite tailings deposited over the past 90years of mining estimated to contain on average 0.80% nickel and 0.03%cobalt. This puts the in-situ value for nickel at US$22 billion alone(current market price of Ni @ US$27,000/t). Nickel is a metal ofincreasing strategic value and in high demand due to its use in cleanenergy technologies. *
“We are very happy to see the government stepping upand providing capital for pilot stage plants in the critical metalsspace,” said Ross Orr, President and CEO of BacTech. “This isprobably the most difficult capital to obtain at the R&D stage, asthe demands are much greater than a typical lab set-up. We willdefinitely be answering the Canadian Government’s call forproposals. In addition to reactors and other equipment, we need toconduct studies on the pre-bioleach phase as well as recovery ofmetals from solution at the back-end.”
The Company’s R&D pursuits radically differ fromother technical groups’ attempts to commercialize pyrrhotite tailstreatment that have traditionally focused on reducing the cost ofnickel recovery to create favourable economics. BacTech’s scientificpath is to develop an innovative zero-carbon liberation and extractionapproach to separating iron from its ore, in addition to optimizingnickel-cobalt recovery efforts. BacTech believes its method answersthe need raised by the Canadian Government and to accelerate thesustainable extraction and processing of critical minerals fromexisting mine tailings and invest in domestic production.
“Providing the solution to the complex pyrrhotiteissue in the Sudbury Basin would be a tremendous win for BacTech andits shareholders. Having completed an applicable year-long bioleachstudy with great results some 20 years ago gives us the confidencethat we can succeed. The complimentary technologies that we hope tonow use were not available to us back in the late 1990s and shouldallow us to commercialize and sell multiple end-products derived fromthe pyrrhotite source,” Orr concluded.
About BacTech EnvironmentalCorporation
BacTech is a proven environmental technology company,delivering effective and eco-friendly bioleaching and remediationsolutions to commercial operations to process and recover preferredmetals (gold, silver, cobalt, nickel and copper) smartly and safelyremove and transform harmful contaminants like arsenic into benignEPA-approved products for landfill. Tapping into numerousenvironmental and economic advantages of its proprietary method ofbioleaching, BacTech uses naturally occurring bacteria, harmless toboth humans and the environment, to neutralize toxic mining sites withhigh-pay potential. BacTech is publicly traded on the CSE under thesymbol “BAC”; on the OTC as “BCCEF”; and the Frankfurt StockExchange as “0BT1”.
For further information contact:
President & CEO, BacTech Environmental Corporation
416-813-0303 ext. 222,
Email: borr@bactechgreen.com
Website: https://bactechgreen.com/
Investor Presentation: https://bactechgreen.com/investors/
Vimeo http://vimeo.com/bactechgreen
*Sources:
Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains “forward-lookinginformation”, which may include, but is not limited to, statementswith respect to future tailings sites, sampling or otherinvestigations of tailing sites, the Company’s ability to make useof infrastructure around tailings sites or operating performance ofthe Company and its projects. Often, but not always, forward-lookingstatements can be identified using words such as “plans”,“expects”, “is expected”, “budget”, “scheduled”,“estimates”, “forecasts”, “intends”, “anticipates”, orbelieves” or variations (including negative variations) of suchwords and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results“may”, “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” betaken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve knownand unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause theactual results, performance, or achievements of the Company to bematerially different from any future results, performance orachievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date ofthis news release and the Company disclaims, other than as required bylaw, any obligation to update any forward-looking statements whetherbecause of new information, results, future events, circumstances, orif management’s estimates or opinions should change, or otherwise.There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will proveto be accurate, as actual results and future events could differmaterially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, thereader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-lookingstatements.
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