Lithium Processing Technology
Metallurgical Innovation
Metallurgical Test Efforts
Driven to be more environmentally friendly and provide higher recoveries
ROCK TO PRODUCT
Goals
The metallurgical test work being undertaken by United Lithium has several goals
- More environmentally friendly – reduce energy and water consumption, recycle reagents, reduce reaction temperatures
- Robust – putting together a single process to handle spodumene and petalite feed material from multiple sources
- A complete solution that goes from rock to finished lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide
Successes to date
- Produced a higher grade spodumene concentrate than typical
- Better recovery of lithium in production of lithium carbonate than typical
- Reduction in temperatures and reagent quantities than typical
Near-term work
- Production of lithium hydroxide at bench scale
- Innovation in calcination and chemical roasting
2022 Planning
- Pilot plant running mineralization from multiple projects, primarily from North America and Europe
- Assessment and optimization of ancillary minerals (quartz, feldspar, micas, etc)
- Test further increase in efficiencies of concentrate production by optimization using dense media separation (DMS), radiometric sorting, X-ray sorting, and optical sorting
Spodumene / Petalite Concentrate
Update on Innovative Flotation Test Work For Spodumene Recovery
- Up to 8.39% Li2O produced in flotation concentrate testing
- Up to 70.3% of the Li2O in the tested pegmatite recovered in flotation testing
- Spodumene prices registered an 86% increase in September (FOB Australia) against a backdrop of tight raw material supply and surging chemical prices in China
Calcined flotation concentrate obtained from test # 1
LITHIUM CARBONATE TESTING
Achieves higher than 99% pure lithium carbonate with A LEACH recovery exceeding 98%
Analysis of the process solutions related with Li2CO3 precipitation tests
Assay of the final lithium carbonate product
- Higher than 99% pure lithium carbonate achieved
- Over 98% Li2O leach recovered
- Approximately 99% Li2O recovered from impurity removal stages
- Test work to commence shortly on a direct lithium hydroxide from spodumene concentrate process