Clean TeQ Water has signed a services agreement with a leading critical minerals developer to deliver a structured program of ion exchanged-based purification testwork.
-- The program will help the client evaluate improvements to their processing flowsheet, focusing on purification stages where ion exchange can provide targeted impurity control and operational simplicity compared with conventional solvent extraction techniques.
Clean TeQ Water was selected for the work based on our ion-exchange expertise, dedicated laboratory infrastructure, ability to rapidly assess techno–economic feasibility, and experience turning lab-scale outcomes into full-scale engineered solutions.
The staged program includes:
- resin screening
- loading and elution studies
- analytical interpretation
- the development of design criteria to support the client’s internal evaluation of ion-exchange for their flowsheet
This program complements our broader ion-exchange portfolio in critical-minerals processing, where effective impurity removal is becoming increasingly important for project feasibility and downstream performance.
Where Ion Exchange Delivers the Greatest Impact in Critical Minerals Flowsheets
In complex critical minerals flowsheets, effective ion exchange depends on getting multiple, interdependent elements right: from resin selection and column architecture to solution chemistry, operating conditions and integration with upstream and downstream process circuits.
In practice, the challenges that limit purification performance are rarely obvious at the outset. Flowsheets that appear robust on paper can become constrained by trace impurities, competing species or subtle changes in feed chemistry that accumulate through recycle streams and upset downstream operations. It is typically these second-order effects – rather than bulk separation efficiency – that determine circuit viability.
When ion exchange is applied with this understanding, it becomes a strategic tool for optimising purification circuits. This is why ion exchange testwork is most valuable when it is designed to evaluate performance under representative process conditions, capturing real feed variability and operational constraints to inform robust, low-risk flowsheet decisions – an approach shaped by Clean TeQ’s ion exchange experience across uranium, scandium, lithium and other critical minerals.
