Ann: Final lithium drilling assay results received at Bitterwasse, page-10

Yep I've seen the announcement. They have technically proven its possible on a bench scale.

Typically when you send metallurgical samples to a specialist lab they will find some way to get the metal or element out that you want as they have many processes at their disposal. Organic acids can be cheap or very very expense. without knowing what one they used (not stated) it's hard to determine if its a economically viable option. I would say they tried the standard acid routes (that all the clay projects in north America are going to use) and found because of the high carbonate it wasn't viable. which is why they had to go with a specialist organic acid.

Clays are notorious for processing lithium. There is a reason why JRL, Thacker Pass....ect have taken years and years to work out and optimise processing. Clays do however have huge scale, so once you crack it can unlock large resources.

Economics are key in clays, and that often comes with economies of scale and large capex up front

DYOR