The Ics Mineral Carbonation Process and Its Application to Metal Recoveries from Silicate Rocks

Integrated Carbon Sequestration was incorporated in Sydney Australia by the Author, Richard Hunwick in 2007.  The company was formed to develop and ultimately deploy novel mineral carbonation processes that utilise ammonia and ammonium salt-based chemistry to convert metal silicates (in particlar the ultramafics) to geologically stable metal carbonates.  The basic processes have been successfully patented in most major countries and regions including the USA, European Union, China and Japan.

The paper will describe the process and its development history since ICS' incorporation.  It will also describe how, in the absence of a price on carbon (dioxide) emissions or stable and functioning markets for trading emissions, our emphasis has turned to the application of the technology for recovering valuable metals from metal silicate rocks.  Typically, 80-90 per cent of the more common ultramafic rocks such as peridotite and serpentinite is magnesium silicate.  After mineral carbonation these become magnesite and silica, leaving an iron-rich residue contains varying quantities of nickel, cobalt, chromiun and platinum-group metals.  What were originally sub-economic concentrations of these metals in the source rock are raised to economic concentrations, amenable to recovery using familiar hydrometallurgical processes. 

But the category 'metal silicate' rocks is broad, and one in particular, spodumene, the principal mineral ore of lithium, is being investigated by ICS in collaboration with a major lithium mining company.  The ICS Process has been demonstrated at the proof-of-concept stage, and promises a process for the conversion of spodumene concentrates into lithium carbonate, the most common form in which lithium is traded for chemical applications, including battery manufacture.  Unlike existing lithium ore refining processes, an ICS process-based refinery will fully recycle all chemicals required--apart from one: carbon dioxide, that is captured from flue gases from calcining and other thermal processes required elsewhere in the refinery.