Infinity successfully produces battery grade lithium hydroxide

The company’s wholly owned subsidiary Infinity GreenTech Pty Ltd (INFGT) has finalised the first stage locked cycle test work to confirm material improvements in recoveries and the successful production of battery grade lithium hydroxide through the application of INFGT’s Li-Stream RPKTM process.

The patent protected Li-Stream RPK process has been developed and optimised for the production of battery grade lithium hydroxide at San José.

The company’s Technical Advisory Committee has progressed a detailed evaluation of multiple technically feasible alternative extractive technologies and reagents for lithium bearing hard rock ores, including the evaluation of comparative operating costs and process complexity, with a view to ensuring that the optimum process flowsheet is ultimately adopted for commercial development. The evaluation of alternative processes was undertaken as part of the feasibility study process and internal assessment of multiple technologies, with consideration to opportunities relevant to social, environmental, and technical improvements that could potentially eventuate from hard rock lithium chemical processing. The review identified several opportunities and focused effort on two processes which can potentially offer significant improvements over the previously adopted process in terms of process performance, operating cost and complexity, energy security, and environmental footprint.

Li-Stream RPK has been developed specifically for the mineralogy at San José. Previously completed open circuit test work confirmed optimised conditions for recoveries and the basis for advancement of Locked Cycle Test (LCT) work. Li-Stream RPK has confirmed in excess of 90% recoveries from ROM to lithium products at San José and the production of battery grade lithium hydroxide through the direct processing of ROM from San José.

Li-Stream RPK significantly reduces the ROM-to-Product flowsheet complexity by eliminating a number of unit operations including the requirement for beneficiation, calcining and roasting, whilst co-generating energy applicable for leaching, evaporation and crystallisation.

The CEO of Infinity’s wholly owned Spanish subsidiary Extremadura New Energies, Ramón Jiménez, emphasised the importance of these advances in minimising the environmental profile for the project through processing improvements driven through in-house R&D. “The process advancements will significantly improve the project in response to the demands we have been gathering from the people of Cáceres and the authorities, making it more efficient and sustainable.”

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/handling-processing/12092023/infinity-successfully-produces-battery-grade-lithium-hydroxide/