Rio Tinto (RIO) said Wednesday it has extracted the first primary gallium from bauxite as part of a research and development project that aims to produce commercial quantities of gallium from the bauxite processed in its alumina refinery in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean in Quebec, Canada.
The initial step was done in the research and development facility of its new partner Indium in New York, while the next phase includes the assessment of extraction techniques to enable the production of larger quantities of gallium at pilot-scale, the company said.
If successful, Rio Tinto said it plans to build a demonstration plant with an annual capacity of up to 3.5 tonnes of gallium.
A commercial-scale plant could see production reach 40 tonnes per year, representing between 5% and 10% of current global gallium production, the company said.
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