Vastly increases recovery efficiencies to as much as >90% and,.Returns virtually all water to the source aquifer.Eliminates the massive environmental footprint of evaporation ponds.Reduces recovery time from months to less than a day.Produces lithium chloride (LiCl) directly from un-concentrated raw brine.The most important features of the technology are, per the news release: This plant, using LiSTR Direct Lithium Extraction technology, had been successfully commissioned on May 15m 2020 and is now operating on a 24/7 basis, extracting lithium directly from Lanxess’ tail brine of their bromine operations. Standard Lithium is now involved in systematic optimization in order to fine-tune the plant, which is a highly automated, three-story demonstration plant including an integrated office, control room and laboratory, and investigate how performance can be improved further. Standard Lithium recently announced the successful start-up of the industrial-scale Direct Lithium Extraction Demonstration Plant at Lanxess’ South Plant facility in southern Arkansas (the “Site”) on May 19, 2020. In the meantime, lithium product prices kept on falling, so as these are interesting times, it certainly is time for an update, further illustrated by input from CEO Robert Mintak.Īll presented tables are my own material, unless stated otherwise.Īll pictures are company material, unless stated otherwise.Īll currencies are in US Dollars, unless stated otherwise With the funding secured, Standard Lithium proceeded as quickly as possible, abiding to COVID-19 measures at the Lanxess location, resulting in the announcement on of the successful commissioning and commencement of continuous 24/7 operation of the demonstration plant, first of its kind at this scale, this month.
The timing couldn’t have been better, as the COVID-19 pandemic gathered speed at the same moment, severely dampening sentiment at for example the mining industry’s premier event PDAC in the first week of March. After Standard Lithium (TSXV: SLL) (OTCQX: STLHF) (FRA: S5L) managed to close an almost two times oversubscribed C$12.1M capital raise on February 21, 2020, the company is financed at least into the “Proof of Concept” completion of the demonstration plant, and the subsequent consummation of the formal Joint Venture with LANXESS.