Direct lithium extraction (DLE) company Lilac Solutions says a successful demonstration of its fourth-generation ion exchange technology at a demonstration plant in Jujuy, Argentina, moved it toward full commercial deployment.
US-based Lilac said its test achieved 91% lithium recovery on salar brine with a lithium grade of 300 mg/L and 99.4% overall impurity rejection rate operating continuously in a remote desert location 4000m above sea level.
It said the performance of a lithium extraction module built with 100% off-the-shelf equipment, “matching the commercial design with a vessel sized at approximately one-third commercial scale” was a key milestone in scaling up Lilac IX technology.
The plant has been running at the equivalent of 42 tonnes of lithium carbon equivalent a year.
“Lithium recovery at the Jujuy demonstration plant was stable, averaging 91% and exceeding the commercial plant design basis of 90%,” Lilac said. “The Lilac IX media delivered excellent selectivity of lithium over major cations such as sodium, magnesium, calcium, potassium, and boron.
“Notably, the Lilac IX process achieved 99.9% rejection of sodium, the primary impurity in the feed brine. The overall impurity rejection rate was 99.4%.
“The consistently high and stable eluate purity supports a cycle life estimate of over 4000 IX media cycles on the Jujuy brine, which is consistent with the performance seen at mini-pilot scale.”
Lilac said engineering group Hatch was on site to verify the demonstration plant’s performance.
Lilac raised US$145 million of private funding last year with further backing from Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and new investment from Mitsubishi.
