ASX Today, page-39767

The Greenbushes recovery rate of 72.5%, as posted above, is exceptional - why, well they are producing products way above 6%, and btw the products above 6.5% have Fe203 counts well below 0.8% (which is what the spec is for Chemical Grade 6% grade concentrate). What Greenbushes produce can have high end technical grade applications, and this TG product can actually also be used for chemical grade applications as well - it is CG that is used in batteries, but your standard CG product cannot be used in high end TG applications.

In other words, Greenbushes produces both CG and TG applications, with your CG product they produce been the 6% grade concentrate - see table below. So to be blunt if they were producing just CG 6% grade concentrate their recovery rate would IMO be greater than 72.5% - a while back I posted on here that LTR's ore, because it has low deleterious elements, could be also used for high end technical grade applications, but they are choosing to essentially produce CG applications, so the recovery rate they are proposing is not out of the picture is the point.

By way of background, Greenbushes technical grade spodumene sales (which are used in say glass/ceramics etc etc etc) have lower impurity levels than its chemical grade sales (batteries), albeit we are talking semantics here but very important semantics here btw, but semantics is a key for certain application of spodumene (and by default hydroxide/carbonates uses as well) IMO IMO.

Chemical grade lithium cannot be used as a substitute for high end technical grade lithium applications because of its higher iron content for say the ceramics/glass/grease markets and to be frank the actual difference between technical grade and chemical grade lithium is simply iron/impurities content in the concentrate as there is not much other differences between the two concentrate types. Technical grade can be used for chemical grade purposes but chemical grade cannot be used for technical grade purposes.

In the table below, Greenbushes chemical grade sales (battery) are SC6%, the rest technical grade, and yes the Table is old:


My point for putting this up: Producing above 6% Li20 plus with low deleterious elements, my gut feel is that what markets LTR can supply into can be very broad, provided deleterious elements are on spec and as a result they can get very decent prices compared to say others. But doing so is a function of what best works for LTR in terms of recovery rate and product produced. But time will tell.

How do impurities impact the converters
The more impurities you have in the spodumene concentrate in the roasting process, you will need to extract these impurities out but you also extract out lithium, a problem in itself. Most converters operate on the assumption of recovering 85% - 90% of the lithium concentrate in the 6% grade concentrate exported, when converting to say carbonate/hydroxide for example. Now, high deleterious impurities means that these impurities, if not removed in the 6% concentrate making process adequately to meet sales specs, stick at high enough concentrations in the 1050 degrees roasting process meaning they form clinkers and therefore in their removal you end up losing more lithium in downstream converters, and this is why downstream converters (those producing lithium carbonate of lithium hydroxide monohydrate) would penalise sales not at right specs for example and/or pay a premium for concentrate products with very good deleterious specifications. This article explains the concept of clinkers in more detail:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/all-chemical-grade-spodumene-concentrates-same-harman-grant/

So if you have high deleterious elements in your to produce 6% grade spodumene concentrate then your recovery rate is likely to be lower - even if you are only using a WOF process - or your best scope to meet specs is to produce Li20 concentrate less than 6% grade. Using a DMS process you will never get anywhere near even 70% for a DMS only process - this para further explained in Post #: 71113718.

All IMO