Cornish Lithium Ltd has secured additional funding from the UK government through the Automotive Transformation Fund’s (ATF) Scale up Readiness Validation competition (SuRV).
Money from the fund will be used to fund the construction of the hydrometallurgical section of a demonstration-scale processing plant at Cornish Lithium’s hard rock lithium project at Trelavour, near St Austell.
Processing will involve making a lithium mica concentrate that will be refined further using a patented hydrometallurgical process to produce lithium hydroxide.
Commercial samples of lithium hydroxide will be produced at the plant for evaluation by end users such as battery producers and carmakers.
The demonstration plant will also produce samples of by-products such as gypsum, sulphate of potash, caesium and rubidium sulphate alum.
Results from the demonstration plant will form a critical input to the company’s feasibility study, said Cornish Lithium, ahead of the scheduled production of lithium hydroxide in 2026.
Jeremy Wrathall, Cornish Lithium’s chief executive, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this ATF grant as it will accelerate our progress towards the commercial production of battery-grade lithium hydroxide in the UK.
“This will be a key workstream to allow us to define the processing flow sheet for the project fully as well as enable the production of samples
"The award of this grant provides further validation of the Trelavour Project’s potential, following our major institutional shareholder, TechMet, electing to exercise its option to invest a further £9mln after its review of our scoping study."