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ABx Group subsidiary Alcore has completed the commissioning of three laboratory reactors in its efforts to produce a high-value essential ingredient for aluminium smelting from a smelter waste product. If its process is successful, it would deliver the bonus benefit of providing a local supply of the essential ingredient aluminium fluoride in addition to providing a waste disposal solution.

ABx Group has unveiled a 10-metre-thick channel of high-grade rare earth elements in northern Tasmania with the first batch of assays confirming an abundance of the most valuable minerals and a tripling of the prospective area's size. One drill hole returned 10m of rare earths mineralisation, averaging 863 parts per million total rare earth oxides.

Alcore, an ABx Group subsidiary, has secured a $7.5 million modern manufacturing grant from the Federal Government to assist in the development of its world first aluminium smelter bath recycling plant. The facility aims to generate aluminium fluoride, an essential chemical for aluminium smelting, from smelter waste product bath. Australia currently imports its entire aluminium fluoride supply.

ASX-listed ABx Group appears to have expanded its rare earths footprint in Tasmania after uncovering its fourth discovery in the region. The new prospect, called ‘Rubble Mound' sits about six kilometres east of the company's Deep Leads rare earths project and boasts grades of up to 1,620 parts per million total rare earth oxides. The company says early indications suggest an extensive queue of targets could sit between the two zones.

ABx Group's 87 per cent-owned chemical refining subsidiary, Alcore, has commenced construction of a pilot plant that will look to produce precursor chemicals used to recover fluorine from aluminium smelter waste known as “excess bath”. The Sydney-based company believes Alcore's proprietary technology for recycling excess bath into high-value products such as aluminium fluoride, could deliver economic and environmental benefits to Australian aluminium smelters reliant on international imports.

ABx Group's chemical refining subsidiary, Alcore has modelled up a processing flowsheet designed to produce aluminium fluoride using cheap smelter waste as the feedstock. Alcore's engineers have proposed a commercial 10,000 tonne per year aluminium fluoride plant using the new technology's proprietary process which the company believes will deliver benefits for Australasian smelters currently reliant on imports.