South Star Mining Provides Update on its Advanced Testing Program with Urbix Resources
South Star Mining Provides Update on its Advanced Testing Program with Urbix Resources
Vancouver, B.C. – TheNewswire – September 23, 2019 – South Star Mining Corp. (“South Star” or the “Company”) (TSXV:STS) (OTCQB:STSBF) is pleased to provide an update for the advanced testing program on concentrates from its Santa Cruz Graphite Project located in the state of Bahia, Brazil. The test work is being carried out by Urbix Resources, LLC (“Urbix”) at its cutting-edge R&D facility in Mesa, Arizona and incorporates Urbix’s advanced purification and exfoliation technologies.
Last year, the Company submitted four different flake-size concentrates, previously produced during the Company’s pilot plant program, to Urbix for advanced testing. Phase 1 was a detailed characterization of each sample, including QEMSCAN, XRay Diffraction, Raman Spectroscopy and SEM among others. The results indicated a very high-quality graphite with minimum impurities and excellent suitability for further purification and value-added processing. The Second Phase has been focused on determining the ideal parameters for utilizing Urbix’s low-cost and environmentally friendly purification methodologies to achieve best results. A Design of Experiment (“DoE”) protocol with four key variables (time, temperature, chemical and reagent ratio) was developed based on a Six Sigma approach.
A total of 17 individual purification runs were conducted with results quantified by both % Loss on Ignition Carbon and Change in Burn Rate (dM%/dT) measurements. With the DoE results now in hand, the best combination of variables has been determined and samples from each of the four concentrates (+50#, +80#, +140# and -140#) will be tested utilizing the optimum purification procedure. Dr. Palash Gangopadhyay, CTO of Urbix, stated “We are thrilled to have completed a key step in the purification process optimization with South Star flakes and are happy to report that with an optimized batch time of only 20 minutes, it is possible to produce up to 16,000 metric tonnes a year of 99.9%+ pure +50 mesh flake in URBIXs commercial production-sized reactor currently in construction. This is extremely encouraging for the massively growing expanded and expandable graphite market. Once purified, crytallinity and flake morphology of the Santa Cruz graphite make them ideal candidates for lithium ion battery applications.” Final results from the four runs, along with the expandability characterization of one of the purified samples, will be available in the coming weeks. In addition, one of the Santa Cruz samples has also qualified under part of a US Department of Energy sponsored initiative at Urbix and these results continue to confirm its potential use for nuclear grade graphite.
Company CEO Richard Pearce stated “The results from this independent testing with Urbix supports our conviction that graphite potentially produced from Santa Cruz will be conducive for use in many new and exciting high-tech growth areas including lithium ion batteries. It also confirms that our production will be very similar to the high-quality flake graphite that has been continuously produced from this region in Brazil for over 70 years.”
ABOUT SOUTH STAR MINING CORP.
South Star Mining Corp. is focused on the selective acquisition and development of near-term mine production projects in Brazil to maximize shareholder value. STS has an experienced executive team with a strong history of discovering, developing, building and operating profitable mines in Brazil.
The Santa Cruz Graphite Project is located in Southern Bahia in the third largest graphite producing region in the world with over 70 years of continuous mining. The Project has at surface mineralization in friable materials, and successful large-scale pilot plant testing (>30t) has been completed. The results of the testing show approximately 65% of Cg concentrate is +80 mesh with good recoveries and 95-99% Cg.
To learn more, please visit the Company website at www.southstarmining.ca.
ABOUT URBIX RESOURCES, LLC
Urbix Resources, LLC is an advanced natural graphite processor with expertise ranging across low-cost environmentally friendly graphite purification, nuclear graphite, graphene, and other advanced carbon derivatives. Urbix is also an expert in li-ion battery cell design and boasts next generation high voltage electrolyte and fast charging electrode nanoarchitecture
For further information, please contact:
Richard Pearce, President & CEO
Phone: +55 (11) 2308-6839 (Brazil); +1 (314)266-0793 (US)
Email: richard@southstarmining.ca
CHF Capital Markets
Cathy Hume, CEO
Phone: 416-868-1079 x231
Email: cathy@chfir.com
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