Anson Resources Ltd (ASX:ASN) has received an update from test work underway to produce higher value lithium products from its concentrated lithium chloride eluate.
An innovative process has been developed and tested which has successfully separated highly concentrated lithium chloride into liquid lithium hydroxide and chlorine using electrolysis.
This is a significant breakthrough as it is expected to lower the cost of producing lithium hydroxide from lithium concentrated brines as the lithium carbonate production step is not required.
It is understood that Anson has been the first to achieve this result from a commercial brine.
Anson’s technical advisor from Southwest Technologies Tom Currin said: “We are pleased to have assisted Anson in the achievement of this important processing milestone.
“The successful demonstration of the integrated process with Anson’s brine aligns the project with the multiple products and low production cost business models utilized by the major South American lithium producers.”
Additional cost benefits
In line with Anson’s multiple mineral and revenue-stream strategy, the updated flowsheet designed will produce six products: bromine, lithium hydroxide, lithium carbonate, chlorine, hydrogen gas and hydrochloric acid.
The latter three products will be used in the production process thereby reducing costs which would otherwise be incurred.
The chlorine, for example, will be fed into the bromine extraction process negating the need to purchase chlorine as part of the bromine production process.
Data to feed into study
The data generated from this processing test work will be fed into the planned preliminary economic assessment (PEA) or pre-feasibility study (PFS) that is scheduled to be conducted in the March quarter of 2020.
Proactive caught up with the company in late September 2019 for an update.