Gratomic Inc. announced that it has initiated manufacturing on the Air Classification units for its Aukam Graphite Project processing plant in Namibia. The secondary enrichment program completes engineering on the upgrading circuit on the refining section of the plant. Air Classification is a unique feature of the Aukam processing plant. This allows the Company to take advantage of the singular properties of vein graphite in a very effective and ecologically friendly manner, upgrading the carbon content at both the feed-end of the plant and at the final upgrading circuit post processing. This technology is patented (application pending) under US Patent 63/286,005, and the construction drawings for the required units were commissioned to D.E.N.M Engineering in Toronto, ON. This Air Classification technology was designed and developed by Robert Rice. Robert is a very accomplished Metallurgical Engineer,
with over 50 years of experience in the development of many mining and milling engineering projects. He has created equipment design and applications for a very wide variety of minerals. His development of the air classification system was designed to eliminate the screening process. Screening of crushed ore has been around for over 100 years but the process is limited to material size. Having the ore separated by size is only one part of the process. Air classification separates the ore by size, weight and shape allowing for the fully disseminate minerals to be released and separated from the waste material. The inclusion of the full sized air classification systems at the Akum project is a first for the mining industry. The system has two main objectives: first, at the front end of the mill to separate out waste material and remove any free flowing material (ready for market material); and second, at the finishing end of the mill to raise the purity of the graphite to the industry standard for The manufacturing process will take place in parallel with the wet commissioning phase of the crushing and flotation circuits.