On May 8, 2024, First Phosphate announced that Rapidwall had been successful in using the company’s gypsum bi-product from its merchant grade phosphoric acid (MGA) production to create Rapidwall and Rapidseal valorized gypsum products.

“We are pleased to have tested First Phosphate phosphogypsum and can confirm that it will be able to produce excellent quality Rapidwall building material,” says RBS General Manager, Ben Lucas. “This is some of the highest quality phosphogypsum feedstock that we have ever tested, material which does not require the additional purification or neutralization that do most other gypsums from around the world. First Phosphate gypsum can be directly calcined to produce Rapidwall or Rapidseal material to provide additional revenue streams for the Company with minimal processing steps.

Upon completion of its mine, First Phosphate expects to have access to clean igneous anorthosite phosphate-bearing rock in Quebec, Canada that it intends to purify into battery-grade purified phosphoric acid (“PPA”) for making iron phosphate precursor to support the development of the lithiumiron phosphate (“LFP”) battery ecosystem in North America. The phosphogypsum bi- product produced from the purification of igneous phosphate rock into PPA is expected to produce low-contaminant gypsum bi-product which can be upcycled into Rapidwall or Rapidseal. These high-quality gypsum bi-products have been used broadly in Australia, Africa, Europe, Asia and South America for decades. Now North America will have access to the same approach to a circular economy (a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible, thereby injecting further revenue into the local economy).

It is projected that a 150,000 tonne PPA plant could produce roughly 700,000 tonnes of clean recyclable gypsum which, using Rapidwall technology, could be used to build approximately 25,000 stand-alone three bedroom homes every year or 50,000 two bedroom apartment  units for rapid deployment into rural and indigenous communities across North America. The Company’s access to clean phosphogypsum on a commercial scale is dependent on, among other things, the completion and operation of a mine on one of its properties in the Saguenay- Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec and the completion of its proposed PPA plant.