Vancouver-based Volt Lithium Corp says 93% recovery of lithium from oilfield brines at Rainbow Lake in Alberta represents a “technological breakthrough” for its proprietary IES-200 extraction process.
Volt, part of Toronto-listed Allied Copper Corp, says its oilfield brine treatment system also removed 99% of contaminants from sample material, “which is critical to ensure high purity levels required for saleable lithium”.
“These independently verified results provide Volt with the confidence we were seeking to commence pilot production by the end of the first quarter of 2023 and accelerate development of our Rainbow Lake assets,” Volt founder and Allied president, Alex Wylie said.
Volt’s two-stage process uses proven equipment to remove contaminants and prepare clean brine for its DLE process. Stage two use of the IES-200 technology to extract lithium from brine and concentrate it into a lithium chloride solution is seen as a path to lithium hydroxide production for batteries.
Under a 2022 agreement with Alberta-based Sterling Chemicals, Volt is using a lab at the Nanotechnology Research Centre in Edmonton for its testwork. A technical team led by Volt director of technical services and chemistry Phd, Dr John McEwen, developed IES-200 at the lab and designed the DLE process.
McEwen said the IES-200 technology was undergoing bench-scale testing using equipment that would be deployed for the pilot program and subsequently scaled up for commercial production.
In the initial stages of the pilot project, Volt intends to process up to 250,000 litres of oilfield brine into lithium chloride using IES-200.
Independently verified results from that work are expected to be reported by the end of the second quarter of 2023.