Piedmont Lithium Limited (“Piedmont” or “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has completed a bench-scale testwork program at SGS Canada, Inc. (“SGS”) in Lakefield, Ontario to produce initial quantities of battery-quality lithium hydroxide monohydrate. Lithium hydroxide was produced from spodumene concentrate produced at SGS from core samples taken from the Piedmont Lithium Project (“Project”). Quality results compare favorably with current market specifications for battery quality lithium hydroxide. Testwork results are shown in Table 1.
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Table 1 – Results of Piedmont Lithium Hydroxide Testwork Compared with Industry Specifications |
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|
Product |
Unit |
PLL Results |
China Spec1 |
Livent Spec2 |
Ganfeng Spec2 |
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|
LiOH |
(%) |
>56.5 |
≥56.5 |
56.5 |
56.5 |
|||||
|
Na |
ppm |
<20 |
≤80 |
20 |
20 |
|||||
|
K |
ppm |
<10 |
≤20 |
10 |
10 |
|||||
|
Fe |
ppm |
<2 |
≤8 |
5 |
5 |
|||||
|
Ca |
ppm |
<9 |
≤200 |
15 |
15 |
|||||
|
Cu |
ppm |
<1 |
- |
5 |
5 |
|||||
|
Mg |
ppm |
<0.7 |
- |
- |
10 |
|||||
|
Si |
ppm |
8 |
- |
30 |
30 |
|||||
|
Cl |
ppm |
<10 |
≤50 |
20 |
20 |
|||||
|
SO4 |
ppm |
<100 |
≤150 |
100 |
100 |
|||||
|
CO2 |
% |
0.48 |
0.40 |
0.35 |
0.50 |
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1. GB/T 8766-2013 T2
2. Company sources
The program results demonstrate the ability of Piedmont to concentrate and produce battery-quality lithium hydroxide via an ‘ore-to-hydroxide’ conversion route which is consistent with the chemical plant process design in the Company’s recently completed lithium chemical plant prefeasibility study.
Keith D. Phillips, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented: “The successful production of battery quality lithium hydroxide from ore samples taken from the Company’s drill core represents a major milestone for Piedmont Lithium. The Carolina Tin-Spodumene Belt is renowned for its pure spodumene mineralogy, and we are very pleased that this testwork program confirms the low-impurity profile of our 100%-owned mineral resource. With Austin Devaney now on board as our VP - Sales & Marketing, we look forward to sharing these results with prospective customers in the automotive, battery and cathode businesses, as we advance in our goal of becoming a leading American lithium hydroxide producer.”
