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(Wallace Refiners) – Alpha Lithium (TSX.V: ALLI), an owner of one of the last large, undeveloped salars in Argentina’s Lithium Triangle, announced Wednesday that further Direct Lithium Extraction (“DLE”) testing of raw brine from the Tolillar Salar has yielded a solution containing more than double the concentration of lithium obtained previously. The lithium concentration has improved to 9,474 mg/L (9.5 g/L) with significant rejection of impurities.
The company said that the DLE process was developed by the principals of Beyond Lithium, a team of renowned South American lithium brine processing experts, who have developed a DLE technology to selectively extract lithium ions from brine. The process demonstrated excellent selectivity. Confirmatory assays were carried out in Salta, Argentina by SGS, an independent laboratory.
Based on the strong results, Alpha has expanded its investigation of the entire process flowsheet beyond the initial concentration stage. Achieving a significantly high lithium concentration and low level of impurities at this early stage represents an important milestone in proving the company’s processing flow sheet. Importantly, this result represents an advanced step in the lithium chemicals production process.
The company said that the combination of high lithium concentration and exceptionally low impurity levels should significantly lower CAPEX requirements, decrease operating costs, and improve the ultimate quality of the end products. Beyond Lithium’s DLE process allows for faster and more efficient extraction of lithium from brine with a significantly reduced evaporation pond footprint, the company added.
Alpha Lithium is focused on the development of the Tolillar Salar. The company assembled 100% ownership of one of Argentina’s last undeveloped lithium salars, encompassing 27,500 hectares (67,954 acres), neighboring multi-billion-dollar lithium players in the heart of the renowned “Lithium Triangle”.
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