Cornish Lithium: Homegrown Hope for UK Critical Minerals...

Cornish Lithium: Homegrown Hope for UK Critical Minerals
https://www.e-mj.com/features/cornish-lithium-homegrown-hope-for-uk-critical-minerals/

“We want to build circular economy into our operations from day one, so we’re investigating markets for potential byproducts, including kaolin, the quality of which we’ve already tested with Imerys. Aggregates could also be produced from the first stage of processing — which constitutes crushing grinding, froth flotation and separation — and then the L-Max process, which forms our second stage of processing, will allow us to produce cesium, potash, amorphous silica and gypsum too.”

L-Max was developed by Australian firm, Lepidico, to extract lithium from lepidolite and other lithium micas. Cornish Lithium has an exclusive license to use the technology across the St Austell area. Following concentration, the mica is subject to leaching. The lithium salts are brought into solution and then selectively precipitated by adjusting its temperature and pH. The benefits of L-Max include its low energy requirements, it only uses low-cost, conventional reagents like sulphuric acid and lime as well as steam, and it employs commonly used industrial equipment. It also does away with the need for high-temperature roasting which would increase the operation’s carbon footprint significantly.

“We’re doing some tests to see whether the by-product fines could be used in producing marine concrete for the offshore wind industry as well,” Crane added. “The feedback we’ve had from investors so far is that they’re impressed with how much detail we’ve gone into at this early stage. Details on mineral processing are not usually required at the scoping stage.”

Lepidico is currently scaling up an L-Max plant at a site in Namibia, and Crane said that Cornish Lithium has been able to learn a lot from watching that project.

“We also received some funding from the UK Government in 2022 to build a demonstration scale L-Max plant here at Trelith,” she told me. “The equipment is arriving over the next six months, and we’ll be trial mining about 1,000 mt of material to put through that. The plan is to have the plant operational for 3-4 months by mid-2024. That will allow us to run the process continuously and de-risk the technology for when we scale up to a commercial sized plant.”

That test work, which is covered by current Cornish Lithium’s current permits, is also the reason why the company is able to skip the prefeasibility stage and head straight to a feasibility study which, again, will speed development significantly.
“It’s an ambitious schedule for design and construction,” said Crane. “We’re aiming to reach production by the end
of 2026.”