BritLit: British Lithium Production

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This SuRP project will accelerate through validation of processes the scale-up of lithium production from pilot-scale, to a planned £446M quarry/refinery producing 20,800tpa LCE, meeting one-third of projected UK lithium requirements.British Lithium was the first company to drill for lithium in UK, and discovered a 117Mt lithium Resource in micaceous granite in Cornwall, within historic clay mining areas.As lithium has never been extracted commercially from micaceous granite, an innovative new process was required. Over the past 5 years, we developed our patent-pending LiMica-Sep(TM) and LiSep(TM) technologies. Our electrostatic process uses no chemicals to concentrate mica from granite, and a single medium-temperature calcine and neutral pH leach in water, followed by hydrometallurgical purification to produce battery-grade lithium.Financing the high capital cost for development using complex new technologies and prototype equipment requires a high level of scale-up readiness validation, which can only be achieved by extensive piloting and production of sizable samples to validate technical qualification.British Lithium's new £3 million pilot plant in Cornwall demonstrates the end-to-end process from mined ore through to battery-grade lithium carbonate. It has successfully produced 99.9% Li2CO3, however further work is proposed to refine, optimise and validate the process and to produce representative lithium samples for customer validation.Battery-grade lithium carbonate and hydroxide are already in short supply globally, and none is yet produced in the UK or Europe. UK Li-battery demand will grow from 2,000tpa to 75,000tpa LCE by 2035, and global demand from 225,000tpa to 2.5Mtpa.Cells made from imported lithium are unlikely to meet Rules of Origin (RoO) in free-trade agreements. Currently, 82% of UK built cars are exported, 55% of them to the EU. By 2027, EVs must have at least 55% local content, and a battery with either 65% local content for the cell, or 70% for the battery.UK made EVs with batteries containing UK sourced lithium would have the competitive advantage of tariff-free sale into the EU, but so too they would have a local price advantage over cars made in the EU, not meeting RoO due to imported lithium, and therefore subjected to a 10% UK tariff. The availability of local lithium supply is expected to foment further investment in the downstream supply chain.An independent environmental impact study benchmarked our process and proposed full-scale project to existing and proposed lithium producers, proving our environmental, carbon, water and ESG performance to be best in class.