Ratingen, Germany
Rock Tech Lithium Inc. is pleased to announce completion of a pilot test program and prototype production of battery grade lithium hydroxide monohydrate greater than 99.5% purity, in compliance with end-user electric vehicle lithium-ion battery production specifications.
Rock Tech has been developing and optimizing a commercially proven process technology to produce battery grade lithium hydroxide monohydrate (BG-LHM) from various spodumene concentrates. The process technology was developed to optimize conversion and purification of lithium from concentrates produced at several mining operations in Australia and North America.
The process technology was pilot tested at Anzaplan of Germany to demonstrate product quality using the process design developed for Rock Tech by Wave International of Australia. Several test programs are in progress at various equipment vendor test facilities to finalize the design and process equipment selection for commercial scale solution purification and crystallization circuits.
Through consultation with tier 1 end users, the Company planned and delivered a high-end product specification which exceeds the requirements of GB/T 26008-2020 D1, a Chinese technical standard commonly considered as the benchmark for BG-LHM. The Company has targeted such a specification in order to attract tier 1 customers, and de-risk the future marketability of the Company’s product as customers continue to demand higher specification cathode materials over time.
>“We are pleased with the initial test results from our batchwise pilot program in Germany. The results demonstrate the functionality of our process flowsheet to produce high quality, battery grade lithium hydroxide and are key inputs into the design of our first planned commercial scale lithium hydroxide converter.”
Don Stevens
Chief Technology Officer Rock Tech
The Company has received a sample of BG-LHM as a product from the Anzaplan pilot test program and has begun shipping samples to potential customers (end-users) for product quality testing as offtake discussions progress.
“Discussions with potential LHM customers are intensifying,” said Dirk Harbecke, Rock Tech’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “Understanding the performance of spodumene feedstock in our flowsheet and meeting potential customer product specifications are key milestones for us as we aim to build Europe’s first lithium hydroxide converter.”
About ANZAPLAN The Dorfner group of companies is a leading European industrial and specialty minerals producer with more than a century of experience in industrial and specialty minerals processing, delivering high quality materials, purified products and refined additives to a wide range of industries including the chemical, pharmaceutical, electronics, ceramics and glass industry.
About Wave International Wave International (Wave) are a leading consultancy specializing in the battery and technical metals sectors, with specific expertise in the lithium- ion battery supply chain. Wave have over 18 years experience in lithium processing, including upstream mineral concentrates and downstream lithium chemical manufacturing. Wave are headquartered in Australia, with offices in the Netherlands, Mongolia and South Africa.