Magnetics Business & Technology - November/December 2023 - 24

INDUSTRY NEWS
Geomega to Site Rare Earths Recycling Plant in St Hubert; New Fundings
Bolster Project
Geomega Resources, a Canadian developer of clean and alternative
technologies for the extraction, refining and recycling of
rare earths and other critical materials, has decided to consolidate
its operations into a single, larger location in the town of
St Hubert, Quebec. The site will include its magnet recycling
demonstration plant which has garnered several funding awards
recently. It is planned for a throughput capacity of 1.5 tons per
day of feed material.
The company's R&D subsidiary, Innord, has been awarded a
$493,000 government grant for the development of its process
for recycling of hydrochloric acid from several metal chlorides
which can be used for rare earth elements and scandium recovery
from multiple sources.
The addition of new R&D projects over the last 24 months, including
this HCl recycling process and more projects in the pipeline
to expand its technologies to other major applications, has
resulted in an increased space requirement which led to the site
selection, according to Kiril Mugerman, president & CEO. The
operation will be based at a standalone facility of over 18,000
sq.ft in the Gérard-Leclerc industrial zone of St Hubert near Montreal,
close to its previous location. " We are thrilled with this new
location as it will allow us to streamline Geomega's operations
in the future and simplify the construction of the demonstration
plant. " said Mugerman.
The recycling research project is expected to be completed over
24 months and will have importantsynergies with other projects
of the Corporation. Hydrochloric acid (HCl) is a strong leaching
reagent that can be used to extract rare earths, scandium and
other metals from various sources such as permanent magnets,
monazite, bastnaesite and bauxite residues. Although it has
many advantages, its cost compared to sulfuric acid can be
prohibitive due to its high consumption by gangue minerals and
other major elements. This often results in important volumes
of spent water and solid residues and solutions with only limited
efficiency are available today to recycle HCl. The solution being
developed by Innord is an alternative method which allows to
regenerate HCl from an aqueous solution of metal chlorides
without the need for high temperature treatments.
Other recent fundings have included $3M in funding from Canada's
Critical Minerals Research, Development & Demonstration
(CMRDD) Program, administered by Natural Resources Canada,
towards the construction of the magnet recycling demonstration
plant.
Earlier, in January, Geomega was awarded a $3M grant from
Quebec's Technoclimat Program, administered by the Ministry of
the Environment and the Fight Against Climate Change, Wildlife
and Parks towards the construction of the magnet recycling
demonstration plant.
24 Magnetics Business & Technology * November/December 2023
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Magnetics Business & Technology - November/December 2023

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