Recharge Resources Ltd. announced today that its brine samples containing 161 ppm lithium taken from the Company’s 2022 DDH3 drill program at the Pocitos lithium brine project in Salta, Argentina, are being converted from lithium chloride to battery grade lithium carbonate.
Recharge is using Ekosolve™️ 10 stage extraction process, to produce lithium chloride, as contemplated as one of the end products under the offtake LOI between Recharge and Richlink Capital’s clients. Now a further pre-engineering step is being completed to produce lithium carbonate from the Pocitos lithium brines.
This additional work will also act as an Ekosolve™ Extraction performance test recovery, in consideration for a full sized plant scale-up of 10,000-20,000 tonnes per year Ekosolve™ Lithium Brine Extraction plant implementation at the Pocitos project, under the Company’s technology licensing agreement announced on September 27th, 2022.
The Ekosolve™️ Lithium Solvent Exchange Extraction process can efficiently manage the processing of lithium brines to produce lithium carbonate with a grade higher than 99.2% and a recovery of 97%, far exceeding any ion exchange or adsorption process commercially available to date. Ekosolve™️ is licensed from the University of Melbourne, Australia and Ekosolve Ltd is the exclusive master licensee.
The key advantage of the Ekosolve system is the exceptionally high lithium yield with past yields of 93%-96% and 97.5% of the solvent being reclaimed. Other systems such as adsorption may achieve 72-80% yield, fractional crystallization of 50-70%, and membranes and ion exchange up to 70-90%.
In adsorption and ion exchange systems, extra processes may be required to manage the magnesium and boron content in the brines whereas this is not an issue with the Ekosolve process. Hence the capital expenditure and operating costs are anticipated to be substantially reduced. A significant additional benefit is that evaporation ponds are not required, providing a more eco-friendly solution.
The initial study cost for Recharge was USD $28,000.
Learn more about the Ekosolve™ process on Recharge’s website here https://recharge-resources.com/technology/
Ekosolve™ pre-engineering studies have shown that provided brine flow exceeds 35,000 megalitres per year, 110 ppm lithium content and above have been deemed economic at a class C estimate. Recharge successfully completed a 2022 drill campaign at Pocitos 1 assaying 169 ppm and over a two-week period averaging 161 ppm Lithium. Further surface pit samples taken from the recently acquired contiguous Pocitos 2 project sampled 181 PPM lithium, the highest lithium value found on the Pocitos salar to date. All three drill holes at the project have had exceptional brine flow rates.
This is another milestone in the Company’s endeavour to build up to a 20,000-tonne Ekosolve™ lithium extraction plant at the Pocitos project in order to supply Richlink Capital Pty. Ltd. up to 20,000 tonnes of lithium chloride/carbonate per year, as previously announced under a letter of intent of offtake and with the potential increased size of the resource should improve both the economics and the mine life.
As previously announced, the basis for the NI 43-101 report is well underway after Recharge’s Qualified Person, Phillip Thomas set up the drill program in Argentina when he was there in November 2022 and again in January 2023 to measure review core, flow rates and assays to create the anticipated NI43-101 compliant report. Further flow rate testing is scheduled for this week at Pocitos 1 by Recharge’s geologists.
Thomas, BSc Geol, FAusIMM MAIG, has spent the past 22 years exploring for lithium brines, including building and operating a pilot plant for production at Rincon Salar (sold to Rio Tinto for US$825 Million) as well as he and his team developed the Pozuelos salar, producing an indicated and inferred resource, from four exploration wells. (recently sold to Ganfeng for US$962 million).
CEO, David Greenway stated, “Our offtake LOI contemplates the supply of either lithium carbonate and/or chloride. It is important to engineer the plant for the end user as we look towards the next steps at the Pocitos lithium brine project. This is another positive milestone for Recharge and stakeholders as we move toward our next goals of establishing a NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource, a scoping study of the project and formalising our offtake agreement.”
About Pocitos Lithium Brine Project
The Pocitos Project is located approximately 10 km from the township of Pocitos where there is gas, electricity, and internet services. Pocitos (1 &2) is approximately 1,352 hectares and is accessible by road. Collective exploration totaling over USD $2.0 million developing the project, including surface sampling, trenching, TEM geophysics and drilling three holes that had outstanding brine flow results. Locations for immediate follow up drilling have already been designed and identified for upcoming exploration. Our next step is to do a Magnetic Telleric geophysics survey to position the next drill hole. This survey will go down to 1000m.
Lithium values of up to 169 ppm from laboratory analysis conducted by Alex Stewart were recorded by during the project’s drill campaigns as recent as December 2022. A double packer sampling system in HQ Diamond drill holes drilled to a depth of up to 409 metres. The flow of brine was observed to continue for more than five hours. All holes had exceptional brine flow rates.
Qualified Person
Phillip Thomas, BSc Geol, MBusM, FAusIMM, MAIG, MAIMVA, (CMV), a Qualified Person as defined under NI43-101 regulations, has reviewed the technical information that forms the basis for portions of this news release, and has approved the disclosure herein.
Thomas is independent of the Company and is NOT a shareholder of Recharge Resources. Thomas visited the property to view the core between January 15th-22nd, 2023 and arrange additional flow tests.
Market Awareness Program
As part of Recharge’s ongoing strategy to raise the profile of Recharge’s projects to investors, the Company has further engaged TD Media LLC dba Life Water Media LLC, of Houston, Texas (“TD Media”) whereby TD Media will provide digital marketing services including content creation, distribution, and market awareness campaigns in consideration of USD $250,000 as part of a supplementary digital awareness package extending the current contract by 60 days.
About Recharge Resources
Recharge Resources is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on exploring and developing the production of high-value battery metals to create green, renewable energy to meet the demands of the advancing electric vehicle and fuel cell vehicle market.
On Behalf of the Board of Directors,
“David Greenway”
David Greenway, CEO
