Talon Metals receives $2.47m funding for nickel extraction research

Talon Metals (TSX: TLO, OTC: TLOFF) has won a contract from the US Department of Defense to aid the research and development of new techniques for extracting minerals from nickel sulphide ores and tailings.

The research will focus on the company’s Tamarack project, which comprises an underground nickel-copper mine in central Minnesota and a battery mineral processing facility in North Dakota. Both projects are in the early stages of state and federal permitting.

The research funding is provided by the DoD’s Defense Logistics Agency, which manages the end-to-end global defense supply chain, and will run for a 15-month period. The contract amount is fixed at $2.47 million.

During that time, Talon will study the efficacy and viability of novel sulphuric acid and sodium hydroxide recycling technologies with Argonne National Laboratory’s bipolar membrane electrodialysis process, hydrometallurgical precipitation of co-products through neutralization of leachates, and reductive leach with electrochemical reagent regeneration technology from the Columbia Electrochemical Energy Center in a two-phase pilot initiative.

This initiative, Talon says, aims to produce nickel for US battery cathode active material (CAM), high-quality iron for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery CAM and recover more US nickel lost during the traditional flotation process. Additionally, valuable co-products such as supplementary cementitious material and magnesium carbonate will be studied as a way to reduce process waste (tailings) and enhance value from each ton of ore extracted.

“This funding from the DLA, as appropriated by Congress, enhances the United States’ ability to responsibly and sustainably extract nickel from its own mineral resources through new approaches to extraction that can yield high nickel recovery, recovery of by-products and waste reduction,” Talon CEO Henri van Rooyen said in a news release.

He noted that China, the main US rival, is executing a “long-term strategy to control the global nickel market” through investing billions of dollars in Indonesian nickel mining and refining. “Today, over half the world’s supply of nickel is produced by Sino-Indonesian firms and funded by Chinese state banks.”

“American innovation is required to reduce our dependency on China and Indonesia for critical minerals like nickel,” van Rooyen added.

Talon’s proposed nickel-copper-cobalt mine is currently being submitted for environmental review. Once approved, it could potentially enter production as soon as 2028, with an estimated life of 8-10 years. The project is being developed in a joint venture with Rio Tinto.

The planned battery mineral processing facility in Mercer county, North Dakota, will process nickel and other battery minerals, moving processing and tailings management away from the Minnesota mine site. This project is being funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE), which has provided Talon with $114.8 million.