FYI Resources Ltd’s*(ASX: FYI)* premium quality High Purity Alumina (HPA) has been shown to contain ultra-low impurities and is of exceptional quality and characteristics following recent customer trials in Europe.
The market participant led product development and testwork is designed to confirm the suitability of FYI’s HPA for use in established product applications.
FYI generated HPA material from the company’s pilot plant trials and supplied the European-based HPA marketing group with the intention for them to undertake detailed product and market testing with the objective to establish a joint sales and distribution model for FYI’s HPA.
The testwork, conducted at the market participant’s expense, was tailored to test FYI’s HPA material for compatibility with both general and niche market applications within existing product sales lines of their established customers.
Encouraged by the results from the initial trial samples that FYI delivered from the Stage One pilot plant production, this series of testwork is the extension of those prior studies using larger sample volumes announced in June.
The larger HPA sample size (20kg) provided for a greater level of confidence and broader range of tests. The series of tests involved proprietary product specification and included detailed purity analysis, consistency of product and the equally important assessment of the characterisation and morphology (the particular form, shape, size, density and fundamental crystalline structure etc) of FYI’s HPA. The testwork also included specialty milling of FYI’s HPA to suitable size fractions for various market applications.
Results of the detailed testwork by the market participant concluded that purity of FYI’s HPA material is well above benchmark and that the overall quality of the product is very high and well within ideal product specifications. In particular, the extremely low values of the deleterious elements Fe, Na and Pb make FYI’s HPA very attractive.
FYI Managing Director Roland Hill said the results from the detailed testing are tremendously encouraging.
“Not only do the results demonstrate our product is first rate, it also means that the market opportunities are potentially significant and the pathway to commercialisation for our HPA may be expedited.
“From a customer perspective, we can confidently demonstrate we are able to reliably deliver a premium, high purity specification product with warranted consistency and quality due to the provenance of our fully integrated and controlled production chain in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner.”
Demand for HPA, as a specialised product used in a multitude of high-tech applications including lithium-ion batteries and LED lights, is growing at an annualised rate of >17% pa according to CRU Consulting Group (CRU).
In its July 2019 HPA Market Report, CRU estimated that the ~60,000 tonnes per year ‘4N’ (99.99% purity) HPA market would stay in relative balance until this year, after which supply deficits build to nearly 30,000 tonnes a year by 2028.