RE: Comments about FAR resource from BMN telegram chat.6 Jun 2021 10:37
Seagullsfan your have taken my post off the BMN telegram group and twisted my words.
There are 4 TVM primary producer's outside of China and BMN own 2 of them with Vametco and Vanchem.
I have not said that FAR use heavy acid only that the processing of the stone coal ore is subject to an acid leech and that the Chinese environmental dept have shut down the most pulluting ones in recent years. Very little is known about Stone coal operations in the Western world and the research group that I know pick up information through their attending of the Vanitec meetings.
Until FAR is producing at commercial scale it is an unknown quantity as very little is known about these operations outside of China.
Anyway as requested here is a link about Stone coal.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319977330_Stone_coal_in_China_a_review
in southern China. Attention has been focused on stone coals because (1) they can be used as fuel energy (for power plants and daily use in some villages) mainly in southern China; (2) they are enriched in critical elements and are currently industrially (economic extraction of V) and agriculturally (such as Se) utilized or have such a great potential (e.g. Au, platinum group elements, Mo, and Ni); (3) they are the sources for some toxic elements that have caused environmental pollution (e.g. SO2 emission during their combustion) and endemic diseases such as selenoisis and fluorosis; and (4) they can provide useful information for geological events and regional geological setting (e.g. hydrothermal activities). This article reviews stone coal’s definition; occurrence and distribution; petrologic properties, mineralogy, and geochemistry; adverse impacts on environment and human health; and by-products of critical elements as well as major challenges remaining from point of view of determining element enrichment mechanisms, utilization of critical elements, and control of toxic elements released during stone coal utilization.