- Collaboration between Eurobattery Minerals and the AHG University of Science and Technology in Krakow advances to next stage
- The project goal is to identify the main mineral carriers of vanadium in the black shales at Fetsjön
- The ultimate objective is to form a base to develop an optimal technology for the extraction of the metal from vanadium-rich minerals
- Vanadium is a crucial element in batteries for the electric revolution.
Eurobattery Minerals AB (Nordic Growth Market: “BAT”), a growth company in the mining and exploration industry with the vision to help Europe become self-sufficient in ethical battery minerals, and the AHG University of Science and Technology in Krakow in Poland, today announced an extension of its existing project collaboration.
The goal of the project is to identify the main mineral carriers of the battery mineral vanadium and methods to extract the metal efficiently. In this research project, scientists will use black shale rock material from Eurobattery Minerals exploration project Fetsjön in northern Sweden. Previous results from 52 exploration boreholes and chemical analyses confirm that the black shales at Fetsjön include large quantities of vanadium.
“Vanadium plays a key role in the electrification of the society as it’s included in high capacity chargeable batteries. As a provider of critical raw material, supporting groundbreaking research projects on efficient extraction of these minerals is one important part of our business”, said Roberto García Martínez, CEO of Eurobattery Minerals.
Dr Maciej Manecki at the Department of Mineralogy, Petrography and Geochemistry at AGH University of Science and Technology conducting this scientific project, hypothesize that vanadium in this kind of rock is bound to oxide and mica minerals. This hypothesis is supported by previous research at Fetsjön and other parts of the world with similar rock formations.
To identify the vanadium-bearing minerals, the scientists will thermally remove the carbonaceous substance of the shales and then use a sequence of procedures for the separation of mica and heavy minerals to obtain and identify the vanadium-enriched fractions.
“The preliminary work carried out on the core samples a year ago strengthened my confidence that there is a raw material potential in Fetsjön shales and I am happy to continue the project with support from Eurobattery Minerals”, said Dr Maciej Manecki. “If vanadium-enriched fractions are obtained and identified in the way we believe is possible, works can be undertaken in the future to develop an optimal technology for the extraction of vanadium”.
For further information, please contact:
Roberto García Martínez, CEO
