Reduction Plant

The conceptual reduction plant should be located near a source of natural gas and rail access in order to provide cheap energy and be able to ship the finished Cr-Fe alloy products to market. Nakina is the closest major supply centre to the ROF that offers both and we have assumed that it will be the location of the reduction plant.

At the reduction plant, the chromite concentrate slurry would be de-watered, mixed with a binder, the proprietary reduction accelerant and the solid carbon reductants and
pelletized. The ‘green’ pellets would then be fed into a natural gas-fired reduction reactor such as a rotary hearth furnace (or shaft reactor or fluid bed reactor or rotary kiln) and the chromium and iron reduced. All through the process, waste heat would be recycled and off-gases scrubbed. The metalized pellets would then be cooled and shipped to customers.

Additionally, the pellets could be crushed and the metallic chromium and iron separated from the gangue material, likely using gravity separation or other ore beneficiation techniques. The metalized Cr-Fe would then be dried and packaged, or possibly sintered, for shipment to customers.


KWG on track to secure N American patents for novel chromite reduction process

By: Henry Lazenby
Jan 8, 2015

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Chromite explorer KWG Resources has received an international search report from the US Patent Office's International Searching Authority that had concluded the company’s application to patent a new process for the direct reduction of chromite using natural gas, a carbon reductant and a catalyst formulation was original.

The search report indicated that KWG’s claims were novel and that prior art did not teach or fairly suggest anything similar. The report also indicated that the claims had industrial applicability as defined by Patent Cooperation Treaty Article 33(4), because the subject matter could be made or used in industry.

"This is a major step forward in our prosecution of this patent application. We will now determine in which countries to seek patent protection of this process, beyond Canada and the United States of America. Our discussions and negotiations with chromite industry participants have helped us understand how and where this innovation might best be commercialised, as we have recently shared with Minister Rickford as he requested,” KWG President Frank Smeenk said.

KWG has a 30% interest in the Big Daddy chromite deposit, located in Northern Ontario's Ring of Fire district, as well as the right to earn 80% of the Black Horse chromite project, where resources were being defined.

KWG had acquired patent interests, including a method for the direct reduction of chromite to metalised iron and chrome using natural gas. KWG subsidiary Canada Chrome had staked claims and conducted a $15-million surveying and soil testing programme for the engineering and construction of a railroad to the Ring of Fire from Exton, Ontario.