Ummm.. It had very important info. How much information do you need??
Firstly the technology Lake is using is not owned by them so he can only disclose what is agreed upon.
So what was the important info you say?? Lithium Chloride..
Why? Good question Koi-7.
Well ask yourself when has Steve ever talked about Lithium Chloride?? Answer: Never. So why is it important? Well to summarise it boils down to processing.
First question is when is Lithium Chloride important? That is the hint that Steve has dropped on everyone. Well Lithium Chloride is the precursor to Lithium Hydroxide which is the ultimate compound for EV batteries especially with Tesla as it is needed for batteries with High Nickel content.
Okay so cool. They have Chloride to produce the Hydroxide. Great. But that is not the big news. He then follows up by saying they will move into producing carbonate samples.
Say what?....
The conventional process is to produce the carbonate first then produce the Chloride then the Hydroxide. That was Steve's next Easter egg. Catching on?
Oh alright I'll be more transparent!
....Lilac has reversed engineered the process so that the constituent for Hydroxide is made first....so.......
Hydroxide can be made cheaper by cutting out the process for making the carbonate. This means Lake has the potential to provide the cheapest Hydroxide on the market. Or for shareholders a greater profit margin.
Refer to this link. That shows the process used at lab scale.
https://www.google.com/url?
sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.osti.gov/pages/servlets/purl/1503997&ved=2ahUKEwjpnMub4cbqAhUAzjgGHS3cCnQQFjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw2VqjB576oPM7-2c2Z1DL2zNow Lilac are not the only ones to reverse engineer this. Anson Resources engineering partner achieved this last year.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.*.com.au/companies/amp/news/905001But here is the advantage that Lake have with Lilac. It is the company that has it in modular form that is transportable. This means they can scale accordingly and get returns on capex far quicker relative to demand because they do not need to over commit to a full scale plant.
This is where the PFS had a lot of sand bagging. It was based on full scale plant. Lake do not have to do that.
But there is more. When the carbonate samples are complete it will mean the modules will be designed for the entire market. Hydroxide and carbonate. What they will need to find out is can the modules make the hydroxide by adding another process for adding sodium hydroxide and apply heating to complete the hydroxide process or does this complicate the modular design... should there be a seperate unit?
As Elon Musk stated on Twitter Hydroxide is hard to make. My feeling is that Tesla is involved in down stream processing as part of vertical integration and suspect this may be part of their road runner project based on Elton's comment.
The 20000L is important for rate of production. Simply we will never be disclosed that as it forms part of the intellectual property. Just be happy Steve gave us this information. They are getting really close to a a complete strategy..
It was a very important announcement. Would love to know why you think it's not....
Peace..
(20min delay)