The latest results from British Lithium Limited indicate that the company’s unique process of sustainably extracting lithium from ores without using acids or other corrosive chemicals, called Li-Sep, is consistently achieving a recovery rate of more than 90%.
The high recovery rate is allowing the company to go on to produce a lithium carbonate grading better than 99.9% purity.
British Lithium is focused on sustainable, chemical-free, processing and an entirely novel approach to the commercial production of battery-grade lithium carbonate from the mica in Cornish granite.
The company is currently ramping up from pilot-scale operations towards full-scale production.
“Our pilot plant technology is continually being optimised to improve the methodologies we’re using, and these results are testament to how successful they are proving,” said British Lithium chief executive Andrew Smith in a statement.
“Our team is expanding and the expertise we’re bringing in – together with the learning acquired from five years’ intensive research – is providing us with the experience and skills needed to scale up. We’re delighted with the support we’re getting from local, national and international stakeholders and are feeling very positive about 2023 and all that lies ahead. We’re also looking at using our brand-new technology in other projects worldwide, giving us plenty to be excited about," he added.
In September 2022, British Lithium won £2mln in government funding in the Advanced Propulsion Centre’s Scale UP Readiness Validation (SuRV) competition.
The programme supports large-scale industrialisation and is seen as key in helping promising companies move on to the next phase of their development.
British Lithium is planning to produce 21,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate each year from a single quarrying and refining site in Cornwall.