Lake Kachi Pilot Plant In Full Swing
Lithium developer Lake Resources NL (ASX:LKE; OTC:LLKKF) and technology partner, Lilac Solutions Inc, have taken another step towards the delivery of high purity, responsibly sourced lithium, with the first samples of lithium chloride successfully produced from Lilac’s direct lithium extraction pilot plant module dedicated for Lake’s Kachi Lithium Brine Project in Argentina.
The samples show high lithium concentrations as previously demonstrated at lab scale. These samples will be analysed by external laboratories next week.
Processing continues of 20,000 litres of brine at Lilac’s newly upgraded industrial facility in California.
Lake’s Managing Director, Steve Promnitz, said the company is targeting the production of one lithium chloride sample per week, which will later be converted into lithium carbonate and then dispatched to potential off-takers.
Mr Promnitz said Lake’s recent Kachi Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) and recently published research demonstrates the disruptive, cost competitive, sustainable and scalable nature of the Lilac process which will be employed at Kachi and its ability to produce a premium, battery-grade product sought by battery and cathode manufacturers globally.
Momentum towards the electrification of global transport continues to accelerate, as seen by new lithium ion battery megafactories, including the UK government’s commitment of 1 billion British pounds of funding towards building a lithium-ion battery megafactory.
Currently 142 battery megafactories are being built worldwide, according to analysts Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, with the market size having quadrupled since 2015 on the back of the EV revolution.
“Production of larger size lithium chloride samples has now been demonstrated at a much larger scale with similar results to the initial, smaller samples reported,” Mr Promnitz said.
“The next step is producing lithium carbonate samples that can meet product quality requirements of large off-takers. We eagerly await the release of these first samples and ramping up our negotiations with potential off-takers.”
