This innovative process is part of the third phase of the company’s hydrometallurgical development program.

“Along with our partners MPlan-Dorfner ANZAPLAN,” said Peter Cashin, Imperial Mining president and CEO, “we have now obtained high scandium and rare earth recoveries from both the mineral concentration and hydrometallurgical study phases of the program.”

“More importantly,” he added, “the process that we have developed is effective across the various mineralization types defined on the project thus far.”

The process involves treating mineral concentrate that was produced from drill core samples. With high rates of recovery of both scandium and REEs, it is an exciting step for Imperial Mining.

“We are extremely pleased with the results obtained to date from our metallurgical test work on Crater Lake mineralization,” remarked Mr. Cashin. “We are now ready to move to the final stages of our test work to recover a high-purity scandium oxide product.”

The company continues to optimize the process with its hydrometallurgical development partners and is planning to apply for a patent for the new process.

The phase III hydrometallurgical development program will aim to recover scandium as scandium oxide (Sc₂O₃) and total rare earth elements with yttrium (TREE+Y) and will be completed in the third quarter of 2021.

Imperial is a Canadian mineral exploration and development company focused on the advancement of its technology metals projects in Québec.

Imperial Mining Group (IPG) is down 5.00 per cent on the day, trading at $0.19 per share as of 1:55 pm ET.