Simbol nears geothermal brine breakthrough

摘要

USA BASED SIMBOL Mining believes it is closing in on cracking full scale economic extraction of lithium from brine without the need for the solar evaporation critical to present leading producers SQM SA, Chemetall GmbH, and FMC Corp. The "big three" brine producers all rely on the optimum evaporation conditions in the salars of South America but Simbol's new reverse osmosis process holds the potential to drastically shift the pattern of today's lithium supply. "The resource is fairly unique and we have eliminated the need for solar evaporation," Simbol's president and chief executive officer, Luka Erceg told IM. A bold statement indeed considering virtually all of the world's lithium carbonate (Li_2CO_3) production - around 80,000 tonnes - relies on solar evaporation as a key processing stage to dilute the mineral rich brine down to a liquor of around 6% lithium. To artificially do this energy costs would deem extraction from this source uneconomical.