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Battery & CRM

Battery & Critical Raw Materials

X-ray Mineral Services Finland is developing a more effective way of characterising complex battery minerals, including Li, Ni, Co, Cu, Mn, graphite, REE and other critical raw materials, in the context of exploration, mining and mineral processing. The project is aimed at more efficient use of natural resources and involves a geometallurgical experimental and analytical procedure for related battery minerals that allows for process characterization on drill core-scale samples to be validated with case studies. In addition, X-ray Mineral Services Finland is involved in research into refined metals, materials and e-waste, such as end-of-life lithium-ion batteries and black mass. We are developing our laboratory (META1) and portable (META2) analytical capabilities and contributing to the establishment of a new suite of reference materials for the battery value chain.

  • Innovative use of XRD & XRF in battery mineral exploration and production
  • META 1 Lab based workflow
  • META 2 Field based workflow

X-ray Mineral Services is currently working with the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) on a 22 M€ Business Finland initiative, led by Aalto University, involving research into the Circular Economy of Battery Metals – “BATCircle”. The key objective of the BATCircle project is to find ways of adding value to the battery metals sector. This will be achieved by more efficient screening and utilisation of mineral resources, enhancement of metal refining processes and more efficient recycling of end-of-life batteries.

X-ray Mineral Services is developing new analytical workflows that will allow us to become a world-leading centre of excellence to grade raw materials and process control products in battery mineral exploration and battery material production. It is essential that multi-disciplinary cross validational characterisation involving Mineralogical, Elemental and Textural data are collected and modelled using data Analytics (META) to underpin a characterisation atlas that can be applied along the battery value chain. X-ray Mineral Services Finland has the ability to provide this analytical toolbox and modelling in Spotfire®.

CASE STUDIES

Raman Spectroscopy of Phosphorites

Raman Spectroscopy of Phosphorites

X-ray Mineral Services in conjunction with its sister lab can produce mineral characterisation maps of polished blocks, polished thin sections and even rough surfaces using confocal Raman spectroscopy…