"can they scale it up" Response [EDITED]- Please Read Yes, what does scalability mean for this project. Well what it means is that the economics, time constraints, and product quality desired may be being produced by benchmark tests at the pilot plant with Tenova right now but may or may not be able to scaled up to mass production. Right now analogous brine solution similar to that found by Pe in Clayton valley has thus far been successfully converted to high purity lithium hydroxide.
The bench mark tests however have been done with relatively low volumes of brine compared to what will be needed to produce the desired quanity of lithium hydroxide monohydrate* of 22 700 tons* per year.
The most obvious barriers are that of the sheer volume of brine required to proccess and the amount of time a hypothetical proccessing plant would need to process that lithium.
*** An extraordinary amount of lithium
Theres a reason you can see lithium brine ponds from miles away. They are massive because of the sheer amount of brine needed to produce a large amount of concentrated lithium hydroxide monohydrate*. With evaporation ponds this is a 2x mulitplyer however because of a 50% recovery rate.
*** Now for some math
65.5 tons* of Lithium hyroxide monohydrate* needs to be produced a day
(22 700 tons / (365 days mult.by .95)* and using basic rudementary stoichiometry we can get a rough estimate of what volumes of brine we will need:
From pumping tests at the CV 2 well released in Feb 19th, 2016 on SEDAR we had a 150GL/min pump run continuesly for 8 hrs. From this sample an average of 230mg/L of Li was obtained so all calcualtions were used from test 7 which is "considered the most rebust sample" by Pe to date.
I got 1.0831E7 g* of Li (10.83 tons*) mult.by (1L/0.230g) = 4.7091E7 L brine* (47 091 tons*)
In summary to meet Pure Energy production goal of 65.5 tons* of LiHO-H2O* Pe needs to proccess around 47 091 metric tons* of brine a day, 1 962 tons/hr*, or 32.7 tons/min.* for those who are more visual a typical "semi" tanker has a capacity of 9 tons, larger ones can carry 34 tons.
***Although this is measured by water tonage NOT heavier lithium brine. So this means that slightly less lithium tonage will fit in the tanker.
This is what we mean when we say Pe has to scale this process up.
*** Problem #1 Pumping
Pumping with a 150GL/min pump for an hour gives you 150GL mult.by 4.546092 =
680L/min mult.by 60min = about 41 tons of lithium brine per hour.
So 41 tons/hr (current bench tests) vs (needed) mass of 1962 tons/hr*. Thats a needed increase of 4780%*.
So obviously we need a bigger pump and a few more wells to get to that number! And if you look at Abermarle's property they have alot of pumping wells unsurprisingly https://www.cypressdevelopmentcorp.com/i/maps/Clayton-Test-Wells-Plan-Map.jpg (a few dozen).
*** Problem #2 Processing time
So we have to process 1962 tons/hr* of brine assuming a concentration of 230mg/L. If its lower we have to proccess even more! Simply speaking based on tech they are exploring a plant will not be able to proccess the massive amount of untreated brine that is needed in a reasonable amount of time. Ah, but there is another way.The solution? Well most likely a 1 or 2 step proccess to treat the brine before it reaches the pilot plant. This is of course why Pe is partnered with other entities such as UBC, SRI International, and other individual partners that can help in this area.
The most likely candidate to tackle the problem is either a membrane filter system or chemical treatment or a combination of both to concentrate the lithium in the brine. This of course would most likely be implemented in massive storage tanks (hundreds of tons capacity each) with a few thousand tons in total capacity. In these system of tanks the lithium would be be concentrated to a greater extent to upwards of 6000ppm citing Albermarle's standards on Pe's website. At 50 000ppm Li (5%) concentration the plant would need to process roughly 9.025 tons/hr* of brine which is much more reasonable than the insane 1962 tons/hr*.
:Regional Production "A well field pumps brine into approximately 4000 acres of evaporation ponds where the brine is concentrated through passive solar evaporation. The brine reaches an optimum concentration of approximately 6000 ppm after 12-24 months in the ponds, at which point concentrated brine is pumped to a processing plant. The brine is treated with soda ash, precipitating lithium carbonate, which is then filtered out, dried and shipped."
- Quoting Pure Energy on Albermarle's process
So instead of evaporation ponds we use a system of massive holding tanks. Think a series of massive tanks containing increasingly concentrated lithium brine. This allows the massive amount of brine needed to be pumped continuesly, as well as being concentrated to a small enough volume and high enough concentration to actually process all within the desired time frame. Waste water that does not contain lithium is then returned back into the aquifer system from the storage tanks.
*** Problem #3 Reserves
Having a decent concentration of Li is key. The lower the Li concentration in the brine the less realistic numbers we get. Anything below 115ppm Li in my opinion may just simply be too low as you can see at a 115ppm Li concentration all of my previous calculations for the amount of brine needed double. So keying up quality reserves here is key. That means more drilling and or aquiring/partnering with other local juniors within the imediate area that likely have high concentration lithium reserves and can be accessed to via pump lines. Pure Energy most likely has enough high concentration reserves howver if sufficent reserves are not found in future drilling programs then the only option to move forward with the project is to aquire or partner with surrounding juniors to access their reserves. Most likely the majority or reserves are bordering Albermarle's property. Lithium may also be present in the extreme south of Pure Energy's property.
*** Conclusion
Hope this was informative. The numbers used in the calcualtion are not exact estimations and should be only considered rough estimations because of data that is either missing or speculative to investors. All calculations were however used off of information released by Pure Energy Minerals.
*Note all calculations with (*) have been edited from the original post to fix calculations that were inaccurate
Some inforamtion that may be useful as a supplement to this post:
https://www.stockhouse.com/companies/bullboard/v.pe/pure-energy-minerals-ltd?postid=24881606
Order of Magnitude Report:
https://static.ow.ly/docs/Pure%20Energy%20OOM%20News%20Release%20Aug%2020%202015_3D1C.pdf
Original Post [NOT edited]:
https://www.stockhouse.com/companies/bullboard/v.pe/pure-energy-minerals-limited?postid=24886826
Here is a video demonstration of the plant as well as a link to Tenova projects that will be using similar integrated technology as to what PE will be using:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-EhziFrpd0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ4G731vXlc
Read more at https://www.stockhouse.com/companies/bullboard/Bullboard/v.pe/pure-energy-minerals-ltd#J9Rctf0sICZUOF8d.99