Lithium Australia NL Sustainability and Battery Recycling Strategy
Sustainable processing technologies
Raw material
Lichemicals
Lithium
Australia
NL
Recycling
Batteries
CAPITALISING ON WASTE STREAMS
The Company aims to provide the battery industry with more ethically sourced and sustainable critical
chemical products. This approach could improve the viability of existing mining operations by extending
resource life and minimising the impact on fragile ecosystems, while also enhancing energy security in
jurisdictions in which sources of critical battery minerals are scarce or non-existent.
LOW-ENERGY PROCESSING OF ALL LITHIUM MINERALS
▪ Lithium Australia's LieNA® technology, a caustic conversion process designed to recover lithium from
fine and lower-grade spodumene, operates under conditions like those used to produce alumina from
bauxite. The reaction induces a phase change in the spodumene grains, converting them to a readily
leachable mineral, sodalite, from which the lithium is easily dissolved and precipitated as LP.
Subsequent processing can produce either lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate as required.
■ Lithium Australia's SiLeach® technology was developed to extract lithium from micas, often considered
'waste' by the mining industry. A fluorine-assisted acid digest, SiLeachⓇ also recovers the lithium as LP.
The technology, which has been successfully pilot-tested, has application in the recovery of lithium from
tailings generated through the mining of tin, tantalum, tungsten and lithium, as well as certain types of
lithium clay deposits.
Both the Company's lithium recovery processes have in common the production of LP, which can then be
converted to either lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate or used directly as a raw material for the
synthesis of LFP battery cathode powders by VSPC.
22
August 2020
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