Toronto, Ontario–(Newsfile Corp. – January 25, 2018) – KWG Resources Inc. (CSE: KWG.A) (CSE: KWG) (OTC: KWGBF) (FSE: KW61) (“KWG“) received notification that its application to patent the direct reduction method invention for producing chromium iron alloys directly from chromite ore was accepted by the Registrar for the South African Patent Office on January 12, 2018. Expected date of publication in the Patent Journal is February 28th, 2018.
The results of tests undertaken utilizing the method, by Dawei Yu and Dogan Paktunc of Natural Resources Canada’s CanmetMINING, were published by Metals, An Open Access Metallurgy Journal of MDPI AG, on January 18th, 2018. The paper reported, in part:
“Although significant research efforts have been made on the carbothermic solid reduction of chromite on the aspect of improving reduction kinetics, little attention was paid to alloy growth during solid reduction. The significance of alloy growth lies in the fact that it could potentially enable the direct production of pure ferrochrome by separation without the need of a SAF or a melting furnace for separating the alloy from the unwanted gangue/slag. Elimination of the SAF smelting or a melting operation means a much higher energy efficiency because the process will operate at the solid-state reduction regime of a much lower temperature. It can also remove the heavy reliance of the ferrochrome production on electric energy. Both of the two aspects bear much significance from the economic point of view.”
And: “CaCl2-assisted carbothermic reduction of chromite by graphite was thermally activated and was relatively fast at temperatures higher than 1200°C. Near-complete metallization of both Cr and Fe at 1300°C generally took place between 1 to 2 h.”
And: “By taking advantage of the density difference between the ferrochrome and the unwanted gangue, pure ferrochrome alloy (with 2.85 wt % gangue) in its M7C3 powder form was successfully produced using elutriating separation, with total metal recoveries of 83.5% Cr and 90.6% Fe.”
KWG believes the research results to demonstrate considerable promise for the efficacy of the solid state direct reduction method of refining ferrochrome and is seeking opportunities to collaborate in the method’s commercial development.