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British Lithium has filed two more patents as it continues to ramp up activity for the next stage of its operational development.
After five years of extensive research into the most sustainable and economic process for recovering lithium from the unconventional lithium mica granites found across northern Europe, British Lithium has been producing 99.9% pure battery-grade lithium carbonate at its end-to-end pilot plant since January.
The two new patents submitted to the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO), cover the team’s unique production methods for high purity lithium carbonate and high purity lithium hydroxide developed during in-depth test work at their Cornwall-based pilot plant.
“We have spent 5 years developing our LiMica-Sep technology for sustainably concentrating the mica without use of chemicals, and Li-Sep technology for extracting and refining the lithium,” said British Lithium CEO Andrew Smith.
“We currently have five British and three international patents pending, with more to follow.
“Patenting our technology is important because it ensures our freedom to operate and protects our shareholders’ considerable investment.”
British Lithium has recently been awarded a Scale up Readiness Validation (SuRV) grant by the Automotive Transformation Fund to fund £2 million of a £5.5 million development programme over the next 18 months.
“We were awarded the grant after a rigorous, competitive process that involved five independent panels assessing thousands of applications,” said British Lithium Chair Roderick Smith.
“We are lucky to have a crack team of industry professionals dedicated to implementing our technology in a full-scale project that will produce 20,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate per year. The investment required to achieve that is significant at over US$400 million, so proving our scale-up readiness and innovative methodology to a very high standard is critical.
“Our team has made fantastic progress over the past 5 years, and we are very confident of hitting our goals.”
The next stage for British Lithium is to lodge the additional patents internationally.
Source: British Lithium files two more patents | British Lithium