SGS Canada carried out the work and improved an earlier bench-scale process apart from designing a flow sheet for the Albany hydrothermal graphite deposit.
The information has been submitted to RPA for the preliminary economic assessment, which is scheduled to be completed shortly.
The National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation started by the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (‘MNDM’) provided financial contributions to advance the metallurgical work at SGS.
Zenyatta Ventures president & CEO Aubrey Eveleigh said: "SGS has developed a relatively benign purification process from an environmentally benign deposit to produce highly crystalline graphite exceeding 99.9% purity.
"Feedback from the market, including potential strategic partners in the CleanTech sector, suggests that environmental considerations are critical when sourcing raw materials for today’s high tech applications like energy storage."
Exploration programs on the Albany project are targeting nickel, copper, and platinum group metals.
The Albany project or Arc of Fire was identified in the James Bay Lowlands. Zenyatta said the area has been largely ignored in the past due to swamp and the younger Phanerozoic cover rocks, up to 200m thick, overlying the prospective Archean rocks.
