SB, seeing that you were in Canada recently and you mentioned that you may have spoken to a few people in the know, I would expect that you would have heard a bit about Hertz Lithium's patented Alpha Spodumene Sodium Hydroxide Microwave extraction process? Hertz was IPO'd in 2023 and also has a claim adjacent to Patriot Battery Metals and also a next to property of Rio Tinto's in the James Bay region. They have been working with Penn State University on the technology and have the rights to it.
I mention this because out of the blue on Thursday I overheard a gentleman who is an Executive of a Capital Market group that is advising my business that he was off to Canada to work with a company and the Canadian Government on financing a project that has technology using Sodium Hydroxide and Microwave energy to extract Lithium from Alpha Spodumene while improving the recovery rate on current hard rock extraction processes by a whopping 40%. First thing I thought when I picked myself up off the floor was "how the hell did I not know this guy was involved in this stuff when I have been working with him for 6 months" then I thought, "why would this Australian financial group even be involved in financing a Canadian Government project?"
Hertz has recently been permitted to sell the technology to organizations on the next tier who are likely to develop the project to a commercial scale application. This is where I believe my man fits in.
Now the gentleman is NDA'd to the shithouse by the Canadian Government so obviously no matter how hard I was gonna wine and dine him, he couldn't tell me much more than he did, but one thing he did mention is that the current trials had been done on hard rock samples that were 1%-1.1% Li2O (does that sound familiar?) The project is headquartered in BC but the financing and whatever else is being done in Ontario, a bit closer to where the action is. He said he may be able to shed more light on the subject when he returns from Canada in 5 weeks.
Now I have numerously stated on this forum that I believe that when all the drilling results are revealed for Moblan and we are packing a punch over 100MT that then, we will see funding come from the Canadian Government in some form or another.
So to my point, does this technology form any part of your thesis? Did it come up in conversation while you were in Canada? Are you NDA'd? .You are a chartered accountant and I reckon you could already know who the Financier and/or the interested development parties are. (Not that I'd expect you could divulge them here anyway)
Sub-sequentially, do we run the risk of putting out a Moblan concentrator that doesn't incorporate this technology (I checked the Moblan DFS flow chart and obviously I don't see a whopping big microwave oven in it" and have it obsolete before we start? Its a horrible time for us at SYA to have a significant advancement in hard rock lithium extraction processes.
I fully expect Sylvain to be on top of this. I would also expect that the Canadian Government would be well and truly on top of this as it would be significant in bridging the cost gap between Canadian Hard Rock Production and the low cost Lithium Brine plays of Chile, Argentina and most likely Thacker Pass.
No mention of it from Sayona, Nemaska, or anyone else up there as most likely because the technology it is still in it's infancy and not available commercially, however I would expect this technology to be influencing funding and F.I.Ds already. Especially the Canadian Government's plan of attack.
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