Andromeda Metals Limited has commenced a new 2,300-metre aircore drilling program at the Great White Deposit which forms a part of the Great White Kaolin Project.
The Great White Kaolin Project, located on the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia, is a joint venture between Andromeda (75 per cent) and Minotaur Exploration Limited (25 per cent).
The aim of the drilling program is to provide additional material for ongoing testing and better define the Ultra Bright Domain. The location of the Ultra Bright Domain and the proposed collar locations are shown in Figure 1.
Testing undertaken by Andromeda in Europe has shown that the Ultra Bright Domain, which consists of extremely high purity kaolinite with ultra-high brightness (ISO Brightness greater than 84 per cent) and with low halloysite levels and extremely low Fe2O3 (iron oxide) per cent, is ideally suited to high-value markets in specialist coatings and polymers [1].
Andromeda outlined that the ISO Brightness and the particle size distributions of the high purity, ultrabright refined products at 70 per cent and 90 per cent passing 2 micrometres (µm) from the Ultra Bright Domain are exceptional (see Figure 2).
According to the company, the ceramic fired brightness testing was conducted to assess potential product blending with halloysite-kaolin to improve fired brightness.
The fired brightness values from the Ultra Bright Domain were all over 100 (off-scale) which reflects the minimal impurities present.
Figure 2 – Fired brightness discs from ceramic testing completed recently. Image credit: Andromeda Metals Limited.
All processed samples were close to the theoretical maximum for aluminium oxide for kaolinite (39.5 per cent Al2O3) and with virtually no colouring oxides or alkalis which indicates good potential to produce High Purity Alumina (HPA).
The Great White halloysite-kaolin has already proven to be a premium feed for HPA production [2], so this ultra-high purity kaolin is potentially an even better feed for HPA production, which is currently being evaluated.
Significant composite assay results from the high purity kaolinite portion of the Great White Kaolin deposit are presented in Table 1 with corresponding drillhole collars located on Figure 1.
Table 1 – Significant composite assay results from the high purity kaolinite portion of the Great White Kaolin deposit. Image credit: Andromeda Metals Limited.
Drilling will also follow up on drillhole CW20AC007 which is located immediately south of the planned pit. CW20AC007 intercepted from 8 metres, 20 metres at 35.75 per cent halloysite with an ISO Brightness of 84.4 per cent [1].
Hole CW20AC007 included some of the highest halloysite grade intercepts recorded at the Great White Deposit as demonstrated by: from 8 metres, 4 metres at 60.1 per cent halloysite with an ISO Brightness of 87.0 per cent.
[1] Refer to Andromeda’s ASX announcement dated 12 November 2020.
[2] Refer to Andromeda’s ASX announcement dated 4 February 2019.
