tria Lithium starts summer program at Willcox to help with development of new brine processing technology
26th Jun 2014, 2:03 pm by Deborah Bacal
The Willcox technology will allow Stria to recover lithium from brine type deposits without the need for large scale evaporation ponds and their associated environmental impacts. The Willcox technology will allow Stria to recover lithium from brine type deposits without the need for large scale evaporation ponds and their associated environmental impacts.
Stria Lithium (CVE:SRA), which is developing a proprietary processing technology to get lithium chloride from hard rock ore, has begun its summer exploration program at its Willcox brine lithium project in southeast Arizona, the company said Thursday.
The main goal of the 2014 program is to confirm historic exploration results and to test groundwater samples for use in Stria's processing technologies now under development.
The Willcox lithium brine property, which is exploration stage and contains no compliant resources, is being used to test and validate Stria's methods to further refine an existing brine processing technology.
The company will be doing this alongside its development of an upstream processing technology for its Pontax lithium resource in the James Bay area of Quebec. Stria Lithium acquired the Quebec asset in December 2013.
The distinct technologies for both Willcox and Pontax will be environmentally sustainable, the company said. Indeed, the Willcox technology will allow Stria to recover lithium from brine type deposits without the need for large scale evaporation ponds and their associated environmental impacts.
Last month, the company's stock hit a new annual high of 20 cents after announcing that it had successfully completed the phase 1 development process for its hard rock ore-to-lithium metal process for application at its Pontax project.
Phase 2 of the process will involve driving further efficiencies and optimization for the steps just completed, as well as collecting more data to gain a better understanding of what equipment to order for the pilot plant.
The lithium process uses fewer chemicals and controls as well as reduced energy, meaning it will cost less money to recover lithium.
"Completion of our Phase 1 spodumene process investigation was by far the most difficult part of development. Now all our efforts will be devoted to the testing stages," said COO Julien Davy.
"Unlike the Willcox brine process which builds upon existing and proven technologies, our proprietary, hard rock process is being developed in house and is unique to Stria Lithium."
Stria's eventual goal is to produce high purity lithium metal or other lithium compounds that meet the needs of battery manufacturers while also dramatically reducing costs and environmental effects.
"Any lithium process that significantly reduces production costs will help changing the battery market," said Davy.
"Now with Phase 1 in hand, we can move towards the final steps in our process to recover a high-purity product in a sustainable way as we recycle as much as possible the process chemicals."
By 2025, it is estimated that global consumption from the battery manufacturing sectors for lithium will account for some 65% of total global consumption. Lithium is used, in greater quantities, in batteries for electric vehicles, with an anticipated uptick in demand for plug-in hybrid electric and all-electric cars expected to increase the call for lithium significantly.
