Anson Resources Ltd (ASX:ASN) has successfully produced battery-grade lithium carbonate, which now will be used as samples for potential off-take parties and end users.
The 99.9% lithium carbonate was produced directly from concentrated lithium chloride brine via a lithium hydroxide electrolysis process with a recovery of 85.7%.
Importantly, the production of the high-grade product demonstrates Anson’s ability to successfully convert lithium chloride brine to a high-value, battery-grade lithium carbonate.
Innovative electrolysis process to lower costs
The process of separating highly concentrated lithium chloride into liquid lithium hydroxide and chlorine using electrolysis is considered innovative.
This breakthrough from Anson is expected to lower the cost of producing lithium hydroxide from lithium concentrated brines as the lithium carbonate production step is not required.
The lithium carbonate product will be offered to potential customers and end-users for qualification test work.
The data generated throughout the entire flowsheet will be fed into the planned preliminary economic assessment (PEA) scheduled to be conducted in the March quarter of 2020.
Follows on from resource upgrade
Today’s news follows on from last month’s resource upgrade, which saw Anson increase the JORC resource estimate by 289% to 501 million tonnes of brine for the Paradox Project.
The resource indicates 260,400 tonnes of contained lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) and 1.61 million tonnes of bromine.
The updated resource includes four new underground zones being clastic zones 17, 19, 29 and 33, which add to clastic zone 31.
Furthermore, scope for further expansion exists with an additional exploration target for clastic zones 17,19, 29, 31 and 33 estimated at 375 to 700 million tonnes of brine grading in the range of 50 mg/L to 300 mg/L lithium.