ABx Group Limited (ABx or the Company) (ASX: ABX), an Australian company delivering materials for a cleaner future, is pleased to announce positive results from large batch tests confirming high-purity rare earth elements. The tests are part of ABx’s program to produce a mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC) product from its Deep Leads ionic adsorption clay rare earth project, located 45km west of Launceston in northern Tasmania. This MREC is a saleable product used in downstream refining to produce separated rare earth oxides, rare earth metals, and magnets essential for clean-energy technologies.
The latest testwork, conducted by ANSTO, involved two impurity removal trials on rare earth-enriched leach solutions from a 1.2 kg sub-sample of a 100 kg bulk sample taken from the Deep Leads resource area. At near-optimum conditions (pH 5.9 and 6.2), the key impurity, aluminium, was almost completely removed, while more than 98% of rare earth elements remained in solution. The aluminium to total rare earths ratio (Al:TREE ratio) was less than 0.005 in these tests, a very low level expected to be appealing to customers.
These results provide further evidence that the Deep Leads resource offers a valuable combination of high dysprosium (Dy) and terbium (Tb) grade, high rare earth recovery under low-cost conditions, and low impurities. ABx Group Managing Director and CEO Mark Cooksey expressed enthusiasm for the results, stating they are ‘extraordinarily good’ and that the company eagerly anticipates the production of the MREC sample later this month. Due to the high DyTb content, high extractions, low impurities and significant resource, ABx Group continues to receive strong interest from potential customers.
ANSTO has commenced production of the first MREC product using 50 kg of the 100 kg bulk sample, with completion expected before the end of November. The sample will be distributed to potential customers and offtake partners for evaluation. Column leach tests are also planned to commence in November, with results available by early 2026, to confirm the high extractions obtained in diagnostic leach tests in tanks are also observed in a column leach arrangement.
