Mine excursion
Making the most
of vanadium
By Dineo Phoshoko
Heights, Pretoria, Brits, Rustenburg, and
north of the Pilanesberg, otherwise known as
the Bushveld Complex.
Exploiting vanadium to its full
potential
Through Bushveld Vanadium, Bushveld
Minerals has managed to successfully tap into
the vanadium market by not only mining the
mineral, but through further beneficiation
to produce Nitrovan™, Vametco’s trademark
vanadium nitride product. Bushveld Energy,
the company’s energy storage project
developer and component manufacturer, is
exclusively focused on vanadium redox flow
batteries (VRFB) technology.
AIM-listed Bushveld
Minerals is one of
the leading primary
vanadium producers in
the world. Mining Mirror
visited the Vametco
mine and processing
plant to discover how
the mining company
extracts and processes
the mineral ore
and how it is being
commoditised.
I
n the book Inorganic Chemistry, authors
Arnold F. Holleman, Egon Wiberg,
and Nils Wiberg describe vanadium
as a hard, ductile, silver-grey metal.
South Africa is among the top vanadium
producers in the world and is home to one
of the highest vanadium grades in the world.
Approximately 32% of the world’s vanadium
reserves are found in the country’s Bushveld
Complex — where the world’s largest known
reserves of vanadium are found.
In the article “Vanadium in South Africa”,
B. Rohrmann explained that important
vanadium-bearing titanomagnetites are
confined to the magnetite group seams at the
upper zone base. It further explained that the
ore body outcrops at Roossenekal, Magnet
Bushveld’s Vametco is an integrated mining and processing plant situated 8km to the north-east of Brits.
[14] MINING MIRROR APRIL 2019
www.miningmirror.co.za