DLE and Lithium – no one knows!
By Tshepo Magagane
I repeat no one knows!
I have always said “as much as Lithium is abundantly found 1. Like iron ore, you get it right eg some moves Rinehart made at the trough, you will like have inspired investment case studies 2. D&S balances with DLE numbers either way are not worth the paper they are written on
Recently caught up with the leading company trying out DLE – talking they have pilot production…
…and we all cracked up so hard over a long lunch – simply they also cant even tell whether it will be commercial!
So it also tells me that Exxon is also nowhere near to understanding this – because this company had probably half a decade on them working on this – and they are proper specialists in the mining sector!
So yeah, no one knows about Lithium!
Even if it worked, where would in stack up in Quintile Cost Curve – no one knows!
PS: Adamas Intelligence on other developments:
Tesla has begun commissioning its lithium hydroxide refinery in Texas. Some observations on what has been reported:
Feed: The facility began stockpiling Piedmont’s NAL spodumene concentrate from Quebec about a year ago. This will be combined with Liontown’s Kathleen Valley product from Western Australia. I believe the plant will eventually receive rail cars directly from Port of Corpus Christi in the Gulf of Mexico.
Processing technology: I note some reporters (article below) are conflating the ‘acid-free’ process employed here with Tesla’s patent work on lithium clay processing technology.
This is not the “just add salt” situation referenced at 2020 Battery Day.
Tesla is deploying an industry first, acid-free, hard rock refining process that many before have looked at, such as the Keliber Oy project in Finland which is nearing completion.
It’s an alkaline pressure leach process, which differs to the traditional sulfuric acid roasting process. Although both use rotary kilns to convert alpha-spodumene ore into beta-spodumene at the front end, here the calcined spod then goes into an autoclave (~200°C @ 20 bar) together with soda ash, an alkaline reagent. Liming & purification steps follow to produce lithium hydroxide.
Notably, the process avoids bulk production of sodium sulfate waste which is difficult to dispose of in an environmentally sensible way, or to repurpose (unless you have certain industries nearby such as detergents, paper & pulp).
Throughput: Previous indications had the plant producing ~20kt LiOH though its being reported there will be 50 GWh worth, which is roughly 30 ktpa LiOH by my numbers, so perhaps we will see higher than expected volumes.
Next steps: Reminder the refinery’s battery grade lithium hydroxide is not yet ready to go into cells – it first needs to join with pCAM to create cathode active material. Although a cathode plant was planned for Giga Texas, the last I heard was the development team was largely disbanded earlier this year so perhaps this is on ice for now.
