Wow, goldhunter11 and LTgoldbull2. Boy are we on the same page. I haven't read Agora at all today until now and I realize we found the same article on the Woxna purification process. I was actually able to find a version where you can read the whole report (see below). And I posted the following to SH as a rebuttal to BG. Not to take any credit away from you goldhunter11 :) great research!

Bob,

Before I begin to dismatle your argument, let's rehash a few things here.

You stated and I quote:
"1 ton of sample --------------------------> 20 tons caustic soda. 20 tons NAOH at the median of $400 USD/ ton would be $8,000 USD."

As well as:
"Eveleigh has stated they use 25% sodium hydroxide by weight. I'm not sure what he means by that because when you look at the NAOH charge on the Walker tests, it was no 25% by weight."

I'll get to your first statement in a minute, but let's begin with the second. Your "not sure what he means" really means that one, you are clueless, or two, that you believe AE is lying just because Walker used 30%-50%. So which one is it?

AE said and I quote:
"A caustic bake is sodium hydroxide. It’s not an acid as some people are suggesting; it’s sodium hydroxide, 25 percent by weight, and we can recycle that material. After you go through that process it comes out at 99.99 percent.

Do you believe he is making this up or do you not understand what he means by 25% by weight? It's pretty clear to me, but that's beside the point. For the record, Walker did not use SGS, so I do not see how you can assume that their process is the same. But let's continue.

Don Hains was nice enough to provide you a good hint of where to find a comparable process using caustic soda on graphite. Instead, you used the Walker results and have therefore concluded that this analysis is what Zenyatta's should be based upon. You then estimated that Zenyatta's cost of purification per tonne using the caustic bake method would amount to approx. $8k. (LMAO). While ignoring the fact that the caustic soda could be recovered and resused in the process, thus, significantly reducing your highly inflated costs already by at least 50%.

Continuing on. Don Hains stated and I quote:
"And the best example I can give you is the Woxna graphite deposit in Sweden that’s being developed by Flinders Resources. That material (in terms of concentrates) was produced at that deposit and processed using a flow sheet of the kind of process that Zenyatta is talking about, in terms of a caustic bake process."

Little surprised you didn't catch that one with all the research you've done on a Company in which you hold no equity in, but decided to investigate for every little thing you can find, in order to help save investors from a "lousy" PEA. Thanks for that. We are all greatly appreciative of hard time and effort. I can see you have a great life outside of posting on BB's with the amount of time you spent posting on this forum the past weekend.

So getting back to DH's hint of looking at the Woxna deposit. A little research and you would have come across this technical report, labeled "Preparation of High Purity and low-sulphur graphite from Woxna fine graphite concentrate by alkali roasting".

http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/123864969

I highly suggest that everyone here read this paper as it will provide you with better insight into the caustic bake process. A couple things to note from the paper:

1) They used 25% NaOH by weight roasting at 250 C
2) "In addition to the successful removal of silicate impurities, the process was also found to be effective to eliminate sulphide impurities"
3) "The results show that along with the increase of NaOH concentration the product purity rises until the concentration reaches 25%, after that the purity curve becomes flat.
4) "The material can be effectively purified even at low roasting temperatures."
5) " The raw material was mixed with 25% NaOH solution in a liquid/solid ratio of 2:1 (w/w), and then roasted at different temperatures for 1h"

For comparison, Walker used a 30-50% NaOH solution in a ratio of 20:1 and then roasted for 6 hrs to achieve those results. Don Hains stated that Zenyatta's flow sheet is similar to Woxna. I'll go with that one. So how about we re-run your cost estimate using these new inputs and a low recovery rate of approx 25%.

"1 ton of sample --------------------------> 2 tons liquid solution @ 25% NaOH by weight = 1/2 tonne caustic soda. 1/2 ton NAOH at the median of $400 USD/ ton would be $200 USD. * 50% recovery = $100 USD" And that doesn't even include the reduction in roasting time from 6 hrs (Walker) to 1 hr (Woxna).

Also note that Woxna then performed an acid leach to remove the remaining impurities in order to achieve 99.4% Cg, while Zenyatta literally rinses with water to achieve 99.99+% Cg using a similar process flow sheet.

Will the cost be as low as $100/tonne? Maybe? But my guess is higher. But as high as $8,500/tonne? Hahahahahahah at least now everyone can see how flawed your "assumptions" really are.

The only person that will not be laughing when the PEA comes out will be you Bobby boy.

TaKeNoTeS




BobGreenfield wrote: Takenotes, I suppose you're not familiar with the dissolution process (NAOH digestion) in the Bayer method for processing Bauxites as opposed to NAOH use for graphite purification. The sodium hydroxide solution is generally about 10% for Bauxites whereas the Walker solution was 30% and 50%.

The NAOH inputs for the Walker tests can't be disputed.

I did not offer the Walker template as an absolute. It was for illustrative purposes only and the numbers are self explanatory.

Eveleigh has stated they use 25% sodium hydroxide by weight. I'm not sure what he means by that because when you look at the NAOH charge on the Walker tests, it was no 25% by weight. The Walker tests started with a higher initial grade so Eveleighs comments are puzzling to say the least.

We will see if Zenyatta investors are still laughing when the PEA finally comes out. I'm not routing for a lousy PEA, I hate to see investors lose their shirts when poor results come out. You don't seem to think there is any chance of a poor result because of the Bayer process ? That deserves a ....................... WOW !

TaKeNoTeS wrote: Hahaha so Bobby boy estimates that it will cost ZEN $8k/tonne for purification alone using the caustic bake??? Hahahahahahahahaha you actually got a laugh out of me on that one. Wow is all I have to say. Who brought the circus to town?

Makes me wonder how in the world they are still producing alumina nowadays huh? At selling prices of approx $400/tonne of alumina, there losses must be astronomical with cost of using caustic soda in the bayer process according to our very own SH genius Bob.

Thanks for the laugh again, I have no need to ever discuss anything with you again after comments like these below:

The caustic soda input ratio on the 6 hour cycle tests for Walker is about 1 part sample to 20 parts caustic soda.

Alibaba prices are in the $300-500 USD range/ton NAOH.

1 ton of sample --------------------------> 20 tons caustic soda. 20 tons NAOH at the median of $400 USD/ ton would be $8,000 USD.

Add in every other cost and things start to look questionable in my opinion.