Axel REE Ltd. has achieved a major technical breakthrough, validating a low-acid, low-cost, and sustainable in-situ recovery (ISR) development pathway at its Woolrich rare earth elements deposit in Brazil.
Recent column leach tests conducted by Brisbane-based specialist laboratory Core Resources has demonstrated that ionic rare earth elements (REE) can be recovered under dynamic, ISR-analogue conditions using a mild magnesium sulphate solution.
The primary test, CLT-01, recovered up to 560 parts per million (ppm) of soluble total rare earth oxides (TREO), representing a 14 per cent increase over the previous base diagnostic benchmark.
The recovered material maintained a high-value, magnet-rich basket comprising 39 per cent magnet rare earth oxides (MREO), including critical heavy rare earths dysprosium and terbium.
Testing also revealed exceptionally low levels of impurities, with aluminium remaining below 2ppm and iron below 0.5ppm, which will significantly simplify downstream processing.
Axel Managing Director Patience Mpofu highlighted the importance of the laboratory results in transitioning the project toward field trials.
“The column program shows that Woolrich behaves as a genuine ionic-clay system under realistic flow conditions, recovering high-grade, magnet-rich rare earths while keeping impurities very low,” Mpofu said.
“Just as importantly, the work is now generating the operating data we need to design ISR field exploratory tests at Woolrich – moving Axel from laboratory validation toward field-scale, low-impact ISR development.”
The generated hydraulic and kinetic data will directly underpin the design of Axel’s first field exploratory test program, scheduled to commence in the December quarter of 2026.
If successful, the company could secure a regional first-mover advantage for commercial ISR rare earth extraction in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
The broader Caladão project currently hosts an inferred mineral resource estimate of 572 million tonnes at 1,506ppm TREO, with the Woolrich deposit accounting for 128 million tonnes.
