Argosy Minerals (ASX:AGY) has completed crystallisation test works at its 12,000-tonne-per-annum Rincon Lithium Project in Argentina.
The testing has verified that the process can be designed to produce a lithium chloride product yield above 99%.
An independent European technology provider performed laboratory-scale continuous, semi-continuous, and discontinuous tests using lithium brine feedstock from the company’s earlier solvent extraction pilot campaign.
The program evaluated evaporation crystallisation and solid-liquid separation, focusing on impurity rejection and meeting target product specification.
The tests demonstrated a semi-continuous batch-fed evaporation crystallisation process under near steady-state conditions.
Product quality met the proposed specification, confirming that pre-concentration, sodium hydroxide treatment, solid-liquid separation, and evaporation crystallisation provide a technically viable route to specification-grade anhydrous lithium chloride.
The process can be designed with little to no purge.
Data from the program are being used by the technology provider to complete the feasibility basic engineering package for the crystallisation unit, scheduled for completion in October 2026.
Finalisation of the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) requires each major unit operation within the process flowsheet to be validated through laboratory and pilot-scale testing.
Argosy Minerals holds a 77.5% interest in Rincon, located in Salta Province within the Lithium Triangle, and 100% of the Tonopah Lithium Project in Nevada, US.
Write to JC Villarba at Mining.com.au
Images: Argosy Minerals
