Hi wgdt72,
ORE's process knowledge will be very valuable to themselves. They have tailored the process to their particular brine composition and circumstances, and with the knowledge gained over the last two years, it will be a simple exercise to replicate for use with more of the same composition brine.
Their process was said to be modelled on the Silver Peak process with a few tweaks to suit the Olaroz brine. They have a
patent on their particular process route, although I have seen other not too dissimilar patents out there.
At the same time, there are no shortage of players out there willing to try new routes to Lithium production - Nemaska, POSCO, BAT, Enirgi, LIT, Bacanora, and others. Everyone wants a game changer, and that comes with risk. Easy to talk about, harder to do...
It was interesting to see how LAC walked away from POSCO and went with SQM. At their Atacama operations, SQM concentrate brine to a significantly higher concentration (around 6% vs 0.7% at Olaroz ) and then truck the brine to processing plants at low altitude. (ALB do the same). ORE avoids the brine transport cost, and their lower concentration leads to a higher yield of lithium (
The optimal lithium concentration for the recovery plant was defined by the loss of lithium at concentrations greater than ~0.7% by precipitation of lithium as schoenite [Li2SO4.K2SO4] - from the DFS) . It will be interesting to see whether brine trucks feature at Cauchari.
