ASX-listed TNG Ltd has extended intellectual property protection over its proprietary TIVAN technology for the extraction and recovery of high-purity vanadium with the receipt of Vietnamese patents for the process.
TIVAN is a method for recovering vanadium from a titano-magnetite ore body without the need for expensive, energy-intensive roasting.
Instead, it recovers vanadium using a hydrometallurgical route incorporating leaching and solvent extraction.
As a bonus, the process recovers both titanium and iron as saleable by-products, making it ideally suited for the company’s flagship Mount Peake multi-commodity project in the Northern Territory.
Mount Peake has an ore reserve of 41.1 million tonnes grading 0.42% vanadium pentoxide, 7.99% titanium dioxide and 28% iron.
TNG also plans to make the process available for licensing globally.
Managing Director Paul Burton said: “We are very pleased to see acceptance of our process in Asian jurisdictions, which complements our existing patent protection in Australia, Russia, Canada and the US.”
“We expect to receive approvals for the other countries in due course, paving the way for future licensing of the TIVAN process globally – a business strategy which could generate significant returns for the company.”
Extending patent coverage is not the only way that TNG is protecting its intellectual property.
In March, the company applied to trade mark the unique colouring dye to be named “TNG360” that is generated from the TIVAN process.
The basis of the trade mark highlights the particular “whiteness” of the pigment due to the very low iron content of the ore feedstock, which ordinarily imparts a weak yellow undertone to the finished product after processing.
By Matt Birney
