Rio Tinto studying ways to produce lithium from waste rock at California mine
2019-10-22 13:39:45 [Print]
Rio Tinto Plc is studying ways to extract lithium from waste rock at a mine it controls in California, making it the latest company trying to produce the battery metal in the United States for the fast-growing electric vehicle market.
Rio Tinto has produced borates - a group of minerals used to make soaps, cosmetics and other consumer goods - for nearly a century in the Mojave Desert, about 120 miles (195 km) north of Los Angeles. That has left behind decades' worth of waste rock, known in the industry as tailings. Rio Tinto said it had been probing the tailings for gold and discovered lithium at a concentration higher than rival U.S. projects under development, although the company declined to give the exact percentage.
"The material being used has already been mined, so this will be a low-energy option for the production of lithium," Bold Baatar, Rio Tinto's chief executive of energy and minerals, said in a statement.
The company is spending $10 million to build a pilot plant that will extract the white metal using a heat-and-leaching process involving a kiln heated to 1,740°F (949°C). The pilot plant will only produce about 10 tonnes annually. If that step is successful, Rio Tinto said it would consider spending $50 million to build an industrial-scale plant to make 5,000 tonnes of lithium annually. That would be roughly the same production capacity as a lithium brine project in Silver Peak, Nevada, controlled by Albemarle Corp.
Rio Tinto said its facility could eventually be the largest lithium producer in the United States, though it did not give any long-term output estimates. If brought into commercial production, the facility would make battery-grade lithium.
Rio Tinto has produced borates - a group of minerals used to make soaps, cosmetics and other consumer goods - for nearly a century in the Mojave Desert, about 120 miles (195 km) north of Los Angeles. That has left behind decades' worth of waste rock, known in the industry as tailings. Rio Tinto said it had been probing the tailings for gold and discovered lithium at a concentration higher than rival U.S. projects under development, although the company declined to give the exact percentage.
"The material being used has already been mined, so this will be a low-energy option for the production of lithium," Bold Baatar, Rio Tinto's chief executive of energy and minerals, said in a statement.
The company is spending $10 million to build a pilot plant that will extract the white metal using a heat-and-leaching process involving a kiln heated to 1,740°F (949°C). The pilot plant will only produce about 10 tonnes annually. If that step is successful, Rio Tinto said it would consider spending $50 million to build an industrial-scale plant to make 5,000 tonnes of lithium annually. That would be roughly the same production capacity as a lithium brine project in Silver Peak, Nevada, controlled by Albemarle Corp.
Rio Tinto said its facility could eventually be the largest lithium producer in the United States, though it did not give any long-term output estimates. If brought into commercial production, the facility would make battery-grade lithium.
Lithium Carbonate 99.5%min FOB South America
Unit:USD/kg
China lithium carbonate 99%min producers' suspension number statistics by province by month
Unit: pcs
