REG - CleanTech Lithium - DLE Pilot Plant Produces High Quality Eluate

Cleantech LithiumAnnouncement

14/05/2024 07:00

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RNS Number : 2515O  CleanTech Lithium PLC  14 May 2024

14 May 2024

 

CleanTech Lithium PLC ("CleanTech Lithium", "CTL" or the "Company")

DLE Pilot Plant Produces High Quality Eluate

 

CleanTech Lithium PLC (AIM:CTL, Frankfurt:T2N, OTCQX:CTLHF) an exploration and
development company advancing sustainable lithium projects in Chile, announces
highly encouraging results from the processing of brine from Laguna Verde at
the Company´s Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) pilot plant in Copiapó, Chile.

 

Highlights:

 •    The DLE pilot plant has produced high quality eluate with low impurities
 •    The performance of the DLE process is based on the composition of the eluate
      achieving key metrics of:
      ○                                         A lithium grade in feed brine of 196mg/L was concentrated to 710mg/L in the
                                                eluate, or a 3.6X concentration factor
      ○                                         Lithium adsorption recovery rate of 94%
      ○                                         Rejection rates over 99% for key contaminants calcium, magnesium, potassium,
                                                sodium and sulphate
 •    A reverse osmosis unit at the DLE pilot plant is used to concentrate the
      eluate prior to shipment, concentrating the test batch from a lithium grade of
      710mg/L in the eluate to 2,194mg/L in the concentrated eluate
 •    An initial 200L of concentrated eluate has been sent to a third-party
      processor in North America for test work to set up the process plant for
      conversion of eluate into battery grade lithium carbonate
 •    CTL will ship batches of 24m(3) of the concentrated eluate for conversion with
      the first batch scheduled for later this month
 •    The pilot plant in Copiapó has demonstrated that it can operate at the
      designed capacity of concentrated eluate production sufficient for conversion
      to 1 tonne per month of battery grade lithium carbonate
 •    This places CleanTech Lithium at the forefront of exploration companies in
      Chile and the wider sector, in its ability to make available large samples of
      lithium carbonate product to potential strategic and offtake partners seeking
      to start product qualification

 

 

Steve Kesler, Executive Chairman, of CleanTech Lithium PLC, said:

"The analysis of the eluate shows the DLE performance has exceeded our
expectations, concentrating the lithium grade of the feed brine by 3.6X while
achieving high recovery rates and low impurities. The first full batch of
24m(3) of concentrated eluate is scheduled to be shipped in the coming weeks.
The pilot plant has met its design capacity capable of producing 1 tonne of
LCE per month, positioning CleanTech Lithium to produce significant quantities
of lithium product samples for potential strategic partners. We are edging
closer to be one of the first DLE based companies in Chile to produce
battery-grade lithium carbonate."

 

Further Information

The Company´s DLE pilot plant is in Copiapó, Chile, approximately 250km from
Laguna Verde, and finished commissioning in late March. At the R&D centre
where the pilot plant is located, brine from the Laguna Verde project is
stored in a large 243,000 litre vessel outside the pilot plant and then fed
into an indoor tank having passed through filtration to remove suspended
solids. It is then fed into the DLE columns shown in Figure 1, which are
filled with adsorbent designed to be selective for lithium molecules. Lithium,
as lithium chloride, is adsorbed from the brine, before desorption with water
to create a purified lithium chloride eluate.

A reverse osmosis (RO) unit at the DLE pilot plant, as shown in Figure 2, then
concentrates the eluate by extracting approximately 75% of the water before
this concentrated eluate is shipped to the facilities of Conductive Energy in
Chicago, USA for conversion into battery grade lithium carbonate. A 200L batch
of concentrated eluate was recently air freighted to Conductive Energy for
test-work to optimise the planned conversion process before larger volumes of
concentrated eluate, which will be shipped in 24m(3) containers, are
dispatched with the first such shipment scheduled for later this month.

 Fig. 1: Pilot Plant Multi-Valve Feeding Brine to DLE Columns (approx. 2.5  Fig. 2: Reverse Osmosis Unit Used to Concentrate Eluate at the Pilot Plant
 metres high)

 

Brine is processed at the DLE pilot plant in cycles where each cycle
represents the 30-hour sequence of adsorption, displacement wash and
desorption using all 30 of the DLE columns to process the feed brine into
eluate. The 200L test batch provides a representative sample taken from the
first two DLE cycles completed at the pilot plant. Analysis of the feed brine,
eluate and concentrated eluate is provided in Table 1 below.

 Element (ions)               Unit  Feed Brine  Eluate  Concentrated Eluate
 Boron (B)                    mg/L  451         279     411
 Calcium (Ca)                 mg/L  640         2       7
 Chloride (Cl)                mg/L  70,893      3,429   11,039
 Lithium (Li)                 mg/L  197         710     2,194
 Magnesium (Mg)               mg/L  2,293       4       14
 Potassium (K)                mg/L  4,533       0       0
 Sodium (Na)                  mg/L  48,776      20      134
 Sulphate (SO4)               mg/L  7,768       91      103
 Total Dissolve Solids (TDS)  mg/L  142,432     4,837   19,260

Table 1: Composition of Feed Brine, Eluate and Concentrated Eluate (Major
Ions)

 

The concentration of lithium from 197mg/L in the feed brine to 710mg/L in the
eluate is 3.6X, which is considered to be a very positive result. DLE
primarily acts as a purification stage, recovering lithium chloride from the
brine whilst rejecting other impurities. For all the major ions in the brine,
apart from boron, the rejection rate was 99% or higher and almost 100% for the
largest impurity in the brine which is sodium, as shown in Table 2 below. The
adsorbent shows very good selectivity for these ions with extremely high
selectivity for lithium to sodium.

The low selectivity for boron is expected with the Company´s process flow
sheet, as described in the completed Laguna Verde scoping study, which
includes a boron removal stage using ion exchange. The current process flow
sheet also includes a nano-filtration stage for magnesium and calcium as a
high-level purification of these two elements is required before conversion to
battery grade lithium carbonate. The very low levels of these two elements in
the eluate indicates nanofiltration may not be required. CleanTech Lithium´s
process team is also working on solutions that would reduce or eliminate the
requirement for the Boron removal stage to further simplify the process.

 Element (ion)   Rejection in Eluate
 Boron (B)       38.1%
 Calcium (Ca)    99.7%
 Magnesium (Mg)  99.8%
 Potassium (K)   100.0%
 Sodium (Na)     100.0%
 Sulphate (SO4)  98.8%

Table 2: DLE Performance - Rejection of Major Impurities

The recovery rate in Cycle 2 was 94% in adsorption with an overall recovery
after desorption of 89%.  The desorption recovery rate is expected to be
further optimised as the pilot plant stabilises over more operational cycles.
The production rate achieved was 2.57 kg LCE/hr which meets or exceeds the
design capacity of the plant.

Downstream Processing into Battery Grade Lithium Carbonate

For the conversion of the concentrated lithium chloride eluate into battery
grade lithium carbonate, CleanTech Lithium has engaged a leading lithium
concentration and refining company, Conductive Energy, based in Alberta,
Canada, which has a conversion facility in Chicago, USA (see Figure 3).
Concentrated eluate will be shipped in batches of 24m(3), which corresponds to
a shipping container, to the port of Los Angeles before transiting to Chicago.

 

 Figure 3: Conductive Energy - Milling and Refining Equipment, Continuously
 Stirred Tank Reactor, and Lithium Carbonate product (pictures left to right)

 

The first step will be to further concentrate the eluate using Forward Osmosis
(FO), with the FO unit provided by Forward Water Technology, another Canadian
company based in Ontario. FO achieves a high concentration factor with low
energy use. Following FO, the conversion process stages undertaken by
Conductive Energy, involve polishing by ion exchange to remove trace
impurities, carbonation to precipitate lithium carbonate, solid/liquid
separation and drying. These standard industry processes for lithium carbonate
production are reflective of the conversion process CleanTech Lithium plans to
use at a commercial scale for the Laguna Verde project.

Samples of the lithium carbonate product will be analysed by Conductive Energy
and a third-party independent laboratory to confirm the benchmark of 99.5%
Li(2)CO(3) is achieved for battery grade lithium carbonate. The product will
be packaged for shipping to potential strategic partners and off-takers for
product verification in the coming months.

 

Competent Persons

 

The following professional acts as qualified person, as defined in the AIM
Note for Mining, Oil and Gas Companies (June 2009) and JORC Code (2012):

 

Marcelo Bravo: Chemical Engineer (Universidad Católica del Norte), has a
Master's Degree in Engineering Sciences major in Mineral Processing,
Universidad de Antofagasta. He currently works as a Senior Process Consulting
Engineer at the Ad-Infinitum company. Mr Bravo has relevant experience in
researching and developing potassium, lithium carbonate, and solar
evapo-concentration design processes in Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia. Mr
Bravo, who has reviewed and approved the information contained in the chapters
relevant to his expertise contained in this announcement, is registered with
No. 412 in the public registry of Competent Persons in Mining Resources and
Reserves per the Law of Persons Competent and its Regulations in force in
Chile. Mr Bravo has sufficient experience relevant to the metallurgical tests
and the type of subsequent processing of the extracted brines under
consideration and to the activity being carried out to qualify as a competent
person, as defined in the JORC Code. Mr Bravo consents to the inclusion in the
press release of the matters based on his information in the form and context
in which it appears.

 

The information communicated within this announcement is deemed to constitute
inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No
596/2014 which is part of UK law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal)
Act 2018. Upon publication of this announcement, this inside information is
now considered to be in the public domain. The person who arranged for the
release of this announcement on behalf of the Company was Gordon Stein,
Director and CFO.

 

 For further information contact:

 CleanTech Lithium PLC
 Steve Kesler/Gordon Stein/Nick Baxter          Jersey office: +44 (0) 1534 668 321

                                                Chile office: +562-32239222
                                                Or via Celicourt
 Celicourt Communications                       +44 (0) 20 7770 6424

 Felicity Winkles/Philip Dennis/Ali AlQahtani   cleantech@celicourt.uk

 Beaumont Cornish Limited (Nominated Adviser)   +44 (0) 20 7628 3396

 Roland Cornish/Asia Szusciak
 Canaccord Genuity (Joint Broker)               +44 (0) 20 7523 4680

 James Asensio

 Fox-Davies Capital Limited (Joint Broker)      +44 (0) 20 3884 8450
 Daniel Fox-Davies                              daniel@fox-davies.com (mailto:daniel@fox-davies.com)

 

Beaumont Cornish Limited ("Beaumont Cornish") is the Company's Nominated
Adviser and is authorised and regulated by the FCA. Beaumont Cornish's
responsibilities as the Company's Nominated Adviser, including a
responsibility to advise and guide the Company on its responsibilities under
the AIM Rules for Companies and AIM Rules for Nominated Advisers, are owed
solely to the London Stock Exchange. Beaumont Cornish is not acting for and
will not be responsible to any other persons for providing protections
afforded to customers of Beaumont Cornish nor for advising them in relation to
the proposed arrangements described in this announcement or any matter
referred to in it.

 

Notes

CleanTech Lithium (AIM:CTL, Frankfurt:T2N, OTCQX:CTLHF) is an exploration and
development company advancing sustainable lithium projects in Chile for the
clean energy transition. Committed to net-zero, CleanTech Lithium's mission is
to produce material quantities of sustainable battery grade lithium products
using Direct Lithium Extraction technology powered by renewable energy. The
Company plans to be a leading supplier of 'green' lithium to the EV and
battery manufacturing market.

CleanTech Lithium has two key lithium projects in Chile, Laguna Verde and
Francisco Basin, and hold licences in Llamara and Salar de Atacama, located
in the lithium triangle, a leading centre for battery grade lithium
production. The two major projects: Laguna Verde and Francisco Basin are
situated within basins controlled by the Company, which affords significant
potential development and operational advantages. All four projects have
direct access to existing infrastructure and renewable power.

CleanTech Lithium is committed to using renewable power for processing and
reducing the environmental impact of its lithium production by utilising
Direct Lithium Extraction with reinjection of spent brine. Direct Lithium
Extraction is a transformative technology which removes lithium from brine,
with higher recoveries than conventional extraction processes. The method
offers short development lead times with no extensive site construction or
evaporation pond development so there is minimal water depletion from the
aquifer. www.ctlithium.com (http://www.ctlithium.com/)

 

**ENDS**

 

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