Mount Ridley puts patent shield around critical minerals process

Mount Ridley Mines has lodged a provisional patent application for its proprietary “Selectro” leach technology after the in-house process delivered what appears to be exceptional recovery rates for a suite of critical minerals, including a massive 56 per cent gallium recovery from a test that yielded zero using conventional methods.

Recent testwork on material from the company’s flagship Grass Patch project in Western Australia showed the process could recover up to 83 per cent of heavy rare earth elements (HREE), 80 per cent of scandium, 72.5 per cent of light rare earth elements (LREE) and 56 per cent of gallium.

The patent filing protects the intellectual property for a technology developed over a decade by the company’s chief technology officer, Chris Larder. The move comes as governments in Australia and the West scramble to secure supply chains for strategically vital minerals.

Australia’s federal government has made both gallium and rare earths a formal priority in its Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve, designed to secure domestic supply. In a similar vein, scandium is also getting fresh global attention, with the US Department of Defense backing a new Australian scandium project this month to the tune of AS$400 (A$565) million as part of a broader push to de-risk critical mineral supply chains. That news lifted all scandium boats with Mount Ridley surging more than 40 per cent on the day of the announcement.

The company says the Selectro process more than doubled the average recovery of its full critical mineral basket over the hydrochloric acid (HCl) baseline.

However, the real showstopper was the gallium result. The 56 per cent recovery was achieved from a single leach, while the same testwork using a standard HCl leach returned zero gallium recovery. For a mineral deemed strategically sensitive for advanced manufacturing and defence, it’s a result that’s likely to cause pulses to quicken.

Having patent protection in place is an important step in safeguarding the incredible potential of the Selectro™ process. It ensures we preserve the multiple pathways to commercialisation this process unlocks, whether through our own Grass Patch project, third-party licensing or a combination of both, while giving us a clear foundation to have more substantive conversations with third parties around scoping and test work, both here at Grass Patch and beyond it.

The company says a key feature of Selectro is its use of lower-cost reagents compared to the hydrochloric acid typically used in processing regolith-hosted rare earths. The technology is designed as a closed-loop system, enabling the chemicals to be recycled without the need for continuous additions during the leach cycle.

Mount Ridley believes these characteristics could deliver significant processing cost advantages and a lower environmental footprint than traditional hydrometallurgical approaches by minimising reagent discharge.

With the provisional patent now lodged, the company has a 12-month window to pursue protection in Australia and overseas. Mount Ridley says it retains full ownership of all intellectual property arising from the process.

The company has now kicked off a bulk testwork program, which includes flotation and further optimisation of the Selectro process, to inform a future scoping study and its broader processing strategy.

The technology will have a solid foundation to work from at Grass Patch. Located just 25 kilometres north of the deep-water port of Esperance, the project already hosts a monster JORC-compliant resource, standing at 367.98 million tonnes (Mt) grading 57.3 parts per million (ppm) of scandium, in addition to its hefty 122.5Mt grading 889ppm total rare earth oxide (TREO) and its eye-watering 838.7Mt running at 39.5ppm gallium oxide.

Additionally, the company’s Weld Range project, 65 kilometres northwest of Cue, provides exposure to gold and copper opportunities.

With the patent application now filed and a bulk testwork program underway, Mount Ridley appears well positioned to advance discussions with potential partners to commercialise a technology that could be a significant game-changer in the critical minerals space.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au