Another article from a local source, apparently the subsidiary company of ČEZ wants to use some technology they called "Incemet", heating up to 1500-1700 C. They are working on it together with the Germans. No acids should be used in the extraction.
(this is google autotranslate from Czech to English, sorry for the article quality)
Whether and when deep lithium mining will begin at Cínovec will depend on the success of field tests in the next three years. Severočeské doly from the ČEZ Group, in cooperation with the Institute of Chemical Technology, will test a new method for separating lithium from the mined rock.
"There would be nothing worse than investing billions of crowns in the construction of a factory that would not have to work," says mining manager Ivo Pěgřímek.
Where has the situation regarding lithium mining moved since the autumn of 2017, when the public learned just before the elections that there are huge reserves under the Ore Mountains?
Preliminary rights to its mining were then held by the Australian EMH through its Czech daughter Geomet, and lithium became a politician.
The survey was started by the company Geomet, founded in 2007 by a group of skilled geologists. They were able to predict the need for strategic raw materials and focus on lithium. They searched for older geological documentation and systematically continued drilling in Cínovec. They located the deposit, calculated the lithium reserves. They managed to seize the original rights - prior consent to determine the mining area. In order to move forward, they were looking for a capital-strong strategic partner in the field, in addition to knowledge of local conditions and permitting processes, who would be able to deal with the unresolved issue of possible treatment methods.
After less than a year of deliberations, ČEZ decided to join Geomet through its subsidiary Severočeské doly with a deposit of 29 million euros (790 million crowns) and acquired a 51% stake in it. Was it a political instruction?
For several months we performed an analysis of the feasibility of the project and verification of its possible profitability. The project is a classic business opportunity further enhanced by the public's interest in a strategic mineral, lithium. We are sure that the demand for it will grow significantly in the future. Its need is related to electromobility, storage of electricity from renewable sources in large-capacity batteries, construction of factories for battery systems. It has shown the most in the last two years, I had no idea that everything would develop at such a speed.
What do you think will be more complicated - extracting the raw material from the earth or recovering lithium from the rock?
We see fundamental risks in the mining of the deposit, but mainly in the treatment processes. These consist of several parts - physical separation, metallurgical process and chemical refining. These processes need to be tested, so far they have been verified only in laboratory conditions. We will deal with this in the next few years.
How does lithium get out of the rock in laboratory conditions?
The extracted raw material is igneous rock - greisen, a certain form of granite that contains minerals and one of them is cinvaldite, which is mica, in this case containing lithium. The excavated rock must be crushed, ground, magnetically disintegrated, ie separated by cinvaldite. The process of recovering lithium from cinvaldite follows. There are several methods for this - for example, the plaster method. It consists in heating the concentrate containing cinvaldite to temperatures of only about 900 degrees, mixing it with additives and then leaching and subsequently separating the lithium. However, we do not want to go down this path.
Why not?
A large number of by-products are formed. We need to reduce the impact on the environment, otherwise it would mean a number of obstacles for the project. We will test other methods based on melting the concentrate, where the mixture is heated to a high temperature of 1,500 to 1,700 degrees and alkali metal chlorides are released. Lithium is obtained from them. This method is dealt with by the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague, primarily by engineer Nguyen Hong Vu, who has a patented method. We agreed to work with him. By-products in the form of clinker can be used as a raw material in construction, for the production of cement.
And what about the accompanying mining of other raw materials from rock, such as tungsten, tin, tantalum?
They are found in the deposit in low concentrations, in low metallicity, so the effect from them will not be nearly as significant as from the by-products for cementers. In this important detail, we differ from the original vision of EMH and Geomet.
Why can be lithium extracted this way only in laboratory conditions?
Mr. Hong at the Institute of Chemical Technology made a small furnace about a meter by a meter in the laboratory, and there he performs experiments on samples in the order of decagrams. These can be burdened by many errors arising, for example, from the formation of stickers on the walls of the laboratory furnace or the use of an ideal source of heating - electricity, which in practice is out of the question for economic reasons. The chemical process that releases chlorides is very sensitive to this. We need to test it on a larger amount of concentrate to be sure of this process and to be able to rely on it during the construction of the production plant. Therefore, we negotiated with the investor, ČEZ, a time of two years to perform field tests. This is not good news for any investors, the tests are prolonging the process, but we have made it a condition. There would be nothing worse than investing billions of crowns in the construction of a factory that would not have to work.
So you build a bigger kiln for Mr. Hong. Where?
After a discussion with experts from various fields, we managed to negotiate cooperation, when the ICT and the cement workers want to build the kiln with the aim of using it for testing and other innovative combustion processes. Such a facility has no analogues in the conditions of the Czech Republic or abroad. It is a furnace into which you can place hundreds of kilogram samples, and scientists will use modern instruments to measure and study ongoing processes. There is such a synergistic effect with the partners that it is very likely that ČEZ will not even participate in the construction of the furnace. The furnace will stand next year, where, I will not say.
Regarding the permitting processes for mining - last year, before the entry of ČEZ, the Ministry of the Environment rejected Geomet 's prior consent to the determination of a mining area for the last part of the territory - Cínovec Northeast; the company appealed. How did the appeal turn out?
In April, the ministry gave its consent. Apparently he needed to prove something. Each part of the exploration area can be burdened by another complication - the disapproval of the surrounding municipalities, the protection of the area according to special regulations (the mining region of the Ore Mountains was inscribed on the UNESCO list last year, ed. Note) and the like.
So you already have all the previous consents. Will something happen right on Cínovec now?
Ongoing geological exploration may be in place - we want to use drilling to verify some parts of the deposit so we know exactly where to mine. At the end of the pilot tests, a final feasibility study will be completed - this will answer all questions: how and by what methods the mined rock will be mined, in what quantity and where the mined rock will be transported, if and how by-products will be used, how the raw material will be treated, up to the method of transporting the finished product. It will probably be completed in 2023. Only then will an application for a mining activity permit follow, which precedes the demanding EIA process, approving the impact of the activity on the environment.
Severočeské doly is still doing surface mining, will you be able to mine deeply, do you have experts for that?
I myself worked for 15 years in deep mines. These are different working conditions, but I do not see the situation with obtaining the necessary professions for this project so tragically. We want to follow the path of the most modern technologies with the use of special wheel mechanisms. In that case, we would at least use foreign experts to introduce these new technologies. As for the workers 'and masters' professions, I believe that we will find suitable ones in the region. Just this week, Seven stopped the last remnants of deep brown coal mining at the ČSA quarry in the Most region - they evaluated that the project would not pay off for them. The dismissed employees are highly qualified miners.
What is a wheel mechanism? For example, was uranium mined in Dolní Rožínka?
Uranium was mined by rail mechanisms, a mining railway was built there, and wagons loaded with rock and pulled by a mining locomotive were transported along it. The wheel mechanism means that a car on wheels, such as a truck, enters the mine hundreds of meters below the ground. The mine must be built for this, corridors with sufficiently large profiles - of the order of several tens of square meters - must be excavated, among other things.
How deep would it be mined?
It is based on the location of the deposit - dismantling and mining will be below 200 meters, that is in the so-called balance of stocks, where the metallurgy of lithium is greatest. In the past, tin was mined at shallower depths, on the order of tens of meters underground.
Is there not a danger of the heavy granite massif collapsing and flooding the corridor at such depths?
Other physical principles work there. We move in very hard rocks, with a strength of up to 200 megapascals, that's a rock. If we go down a corridor into the rock, there is no need to secure it with anything, perhaps in some parts where there are fault zones and there is a risk of collapse - it will be secured with metal reinforcement or bolts. We do not anticipate that it would be a crumbling overburden that would cause us to overwhelm and break down the access corridors. In the case of black coal or uranium, it is something else - the accompanying rocks are soft, brittle and the excavated corridor must be secured, most often with steel arch reinforcement.
Are they farther than you in preparing for lithium mining on the German side of the Ore Mountains?
I do not follow the current situation, we only took part in a visit to the Saxon Mining Authority once. Two thirds of the lithium deposit is on the Czech side, one third on the German side, so we will definitely have to coordinate the work in the future. They are probably still in the permitting process today, but again it will not be such an advantage. I don't even know if they have already done a feasibility study. I've heard that they want to transport heavily on the roads to Freiberg - I can't imagine that dozens or hundreds of trucks would drive through our villages every day. They have not solved the management of mine waters, but that also awaits us. Definitely not going to mining there yet.
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