Lithium Americas Corp (LAAC)

[overlordpeter]

Patent US7157065 Production of lithium compounds directly from lithium containing brines
US 7157065 B2

http://www.google.com/patents/US7157065

The POSCO extraction process is also capable of producing potash. The potash demonstration plant, located in Jujuy city, is in the final stage of construction and is expected to be in operation in the next few weeks. Both the lithium and potash plants will operate for several weeks, following which LAC expects to commence commercial stage negotiations with POSCO in the spring of 2015.

POSCO, Korea’s largest steel company and a leader in the development of advanced material processes, has developed a proprietary and innovative lithium extraction technology which it believes has numerous advantages compared to traditional lithium brine evaporation technology. Specifically, POSCO claims that its technology produces lithium considerably more quickly than traditional brine evaporation technology, minimises the environmental footprint associated with large scale evaporation ponds used in traditional brine evaporation technology, and has a recovery rate which is significantly higher than traditional brine evaporation technology. The higher recovery rates associated with POSCO’s processing technology should result in a project requiring fewer production wells for a given level of production, thereby reducing the capital cost requirements for the wells as compared to traditional evaporation technology. In addition, higher recovery rates would serve to increase the effective size of a lithium resource, thereby extending the life of a project. POSCO’s several hundred tonne per year Demo Plant is the final stage test in the commercialisation plan for its high efficiency lithium extraction process, having previously successfully operated pilot plants in 2011 and 2013, respectively.