Nevada Lithium Resources and Iconic Minerals produce marketable battery-grade lithium carbonate
by CM staff
The marketable battery-grade lithium carbonate comes from Bonnie Claire Deposit material
Marketable lithium carbonate produced from the Bonnie Claire Deposit (CNW Group/Nevada Lithium Resources Inc)
VANCOUVER — Nevada Lithium Resources Inc., and its 50 per cent partner in the Bonnie Claire Lithium Project, Iconic Minerals Ltd., announced the production of marketable battery-grade lithium carbonate from Bonnie Claire Deposit material. The Bonnie Claire Project is located in Nye County, Nevada, and hosts one of the largest lithium resources in North America.
“We are pleased to report the achievement of an incredibly important milestone in the development of Bonnie Claire – the production of marketable battery-grade lithium carbonate,” said Stephen Rentschler, CEO of Nevada Lithium Resources. “This lithium carbonate meets or exceeds the technical specifications on the product sales sheets of two of the world’s premier lithium carbonate producers.”
The sample (several grams) was produced using composited core material (~30 kg) from drill hole BC2001C, collected from the interval of approximately 90 to 380 ft depth (core length). The material, with a head assay of approximately 1,000 ppm Li, was fed through a calcination and water-leach step, which prevents Fe and other deleterious elements from entering solution, allowing for a simple and straightforward downstream purification circuit to be applicable. The solution was processed through an ‘off-the-shelf’ commercial purification circuit through to the precipitation of a crude lithium carbonate product, which was then dissolved and recrystallized to produce a marketable 99.9 per cent pure Li2CO3product.
“We are moving quickly on many fronts to develop Bonnie Claire, as the desirability of the Project’s preferential Nevada, US, location has recently been amplified by components of the US Inflation Reduction Act. We believe the Project to be one of the most attractive global lithium assets remaining in junior developers’ hands.”
The metallurgical program at Bonnie Claire is ongoing with additional material to be received shortly from the recent coring program. In follow-up testwork, the company intends to further evaluate processing to a lithium hydroxide product as well as demonstrate the recovery of potential byproducts (e.g., boron, potassium). The metallurgical program has been designed to support a Prefeasibility Study on the Project.
