LiTHOS Validates AcQUA™ Pre-treatment Technology on Lithium Enriched Brines provided by Multi-National Customer.
LiTHOS Group Ltd. (“LiTHOS” or the “Company”) (CBOE CA: LITS) (OTCQB: LITSF) (FSE: YU8) (WKN: A3ES4Q), a rapidly emerging leader in lithium brine pre-treatment and extraction technology solutions, is pleased to announce that it has validated impurity removal from raw field brines using its patent-pending AcQUA™ pre-treatment technology.
Scott Taylor, CEO of LiTHOS stated:
The upstream impurity rejection results from our demonstration plant were in line with the high-performance expectations we set as a company.
“We can now scale up this system for on-site field deployment rapidly while leveraging a proven supply chain and an existing modular system design. It is imperative to emphasize that AcQUA™ does not use chemicals, reagents, or fresh water to remove impurities. This process delivers an optimal monovalent cation solution suitable for further concentration with DLE. One of the promised value propositions to DLE technology is reinjection of lithium deficient bines. This is most suitably performed with a brine processed by AcQUA™ – without reagents or chemicals.”
Key Achievements:
LiTHOS, is pleased to announce the completion of conditioning and pre-treatment of super-saturated field brines whereby LiTHOS successfully achieved all technical and operational targets including:
- Lithium chloride recovery efficiency of at least 89% 1
- >99% Magnesium rejection approaching rejection to non-detect
- 100% Sulfate (S04) rejection to non-detect
- 100% Boric acid rejection to non-detect
- Zero water usage.
- Zero chemical usage
This accomplishment represents a pivotal step in the company’s mission of eliminating the use of evaporation ponds and scaling lithium supply and production efficiencies while minimizing local environmental impacts. Furthermore, the successful elimination of magnesium and sulfates is a key component to enable subsequent DLE throughput capacity at a meaningful industrial scale.
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| 1 *Measuring Lithium Chloride with a titration-based approach can often result in errors of up to 20%. Most DLE disclosures surrounding values of Lithium Chloride have this level of uncertainty and further, take the lithium yield after pre-treatment losses of lithium have occurred to generate an artificially impressive number. Lithos uses an advanced proprietary chloride measurement system which has a margin of error of up to 6%. We use and operate ICP-OES system for all our analysis with in-house personnel. |
Comparison to Lilac Solutions Technology Q4 2023 Capabilities2
- LiTHOS demonstration scale pilot-plant has achieved superior lithium recovery.
- LiTHOS process uses no acid consumption.
- LiTHOS process uses no fresh water (net water consumption is zero).
Lilac Solutions was founded in 2017, has raised over USD$220 million at its most recent post-money valuation of more than USD$1 billion, and is arguably one of the most commercially mature DLE technology companies globally. Lilac implemented an impressive demonstration plant on Lake Resources (ASX:LKE) (OTC:LLKKF) Kachi lithium project and generated robust data.
On December 18, 2023 Lilac published the following results in Table 1 Below. Key performance indicators for Lilac IX unit in Kachi Demonstration Plant and DFS Commercial Design.
(1) Assumes full utilization of reverse osmosis (RO) for water recovery, RO was partially implemented in the Demonstration Plant
(2) Mechanical testing of a commercial-scale lithium extraction unit with brine and water completed in Oakland indicated 11 tH2O/tLCE with RO water recovery and 1.8 tH2O/tLCE with mechanical evaporation. The DFS utilizes mechanical evaporation for water recovery.
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| 2 Lilac Solutions Celebrates Successful Completion of Kachi Demonstration Plant – Lilac Solutions |
KEY ATTRIBUTES OF LITHOS AcQUA™ TECHNOLOGY
1. High Performance Removal of Key Impurities which choke downstream DLE performance:
- The demonstration plant showcases AcQUA™ pre-treatment technology robust impurity rejection rates.
2. Environmentally Sustainable.
- AcQUA™ eliminates the need for evaporation ponds traditionally used for processing brine.
- AcQUA™ eliminates any requirement for freshwater by 100% relative to conventional DLE technologies.
- AcQUA™ has no requirement for Acid reagents.
3. Scalability and Reliable Operations:
- LiTHOS’ current pilot-demonstration plant uses equipment that is common in industrial applications and available globally from a variety of well-established vendors.
- This initial design and delivery approach significantly reduces scale-up risk and increases process uptime.
Macro Importance of Impurity Removal in Lithium Enriched Brines
The 2023 Goldman Sachs report3 outlines the importance of the reservoir specific content of magnesium (Mg/Li ratio on Y-axis) and sulfates (SO4/Li ratio on X-Axis) and the requirement for their removal to enable DLE at a meaningful industrial scale: “As impurity ratios will impact the ultimate recovery of projects, including in DLE implementation, we outline the impurity ratios of key projects vs. lithium concentration and resource size in the chart below, where typically in a traditional brine pond high impurities are more expensive to process.”
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LiTHOS Validates AcQUA™ Pre-treatment Technology on Lithium Enriched Brines provided by Multi-National Customer. source
