Out in the junior resource world there has been a bit of a lithium rush. The rush is fueled by the Li-ion battery boom and the market’s view that lithium will be in short supply as more Li ion battery based power systems are brought to market.
What is almost never mentioned is lithium metal.
We spoke to Stria Lithium’s (V.SRA) President and COO Iain Todd about the new worlds of lithium metal. From Stria’s website we learn “Stria has developed a novel process to produce lithium metal from spodumene. This process will consume spodumene from our Pontax deposit to generate lithium chloride which will be converted directly into lithium metal. Chlorine is liberated and recycled to the process.”
Now pure lithium metal, as opposed to lithium compounds, is extremely reactive and will basically catch on fire if exposed to air. So the capacity to manufacture and handle lithium metal is a significant milestone in itself.
“Lithium metal represents about 6% of the lithium marketplace.” explained Todd. “But it is a very high value substance. One ton of lithium metal is worth about $75,000.”
“Our process, once it is operating, will allow us to bring lithium metal to market quickly and easily. We already have the technology. That lets us shorten the time frame to production and that will let us finance our longer term goals.” said Todd.
At the moment there are three main markets for lithium metal. “The first is the primary, non-rechargeable, battery market. Things like hearing aid batteries. These use lithium metal foil which we have the capacity to make. It is a huge value add with a ton of lithium metal foil selling for around $250,000.” said Todd.
“The second market for lithium metal is the aluminum alloy business. Lithium makes aluminum lighter and stronger. So it is attractive in applications where weight is a factor. For example, there are 400 kilograms of lithium in every Airbus.” said Todd, “And the third significant market for lithium metal is in pharmaceutical applications where it is used as a starting material for various drugs.”
“These are mature, well understood markets which are growing 5 or 6 percent per year. Global production of lithium metal is around 4000 tons per year.” said Todd.
“Right now four companies in China produce around 2250 tons a year of lithium metal. The Europeans produce around 650 tons and 600 tons are produced in North America. Against that there are nearly 1000 tons a year consumed in North America. We see an opportunity to sell into that North American market. Especially as the Chinese production is staying level.” said Todd.
What Todd did not say is that there is increasing concern in the US that metals such as lithium could be subject to supply disruption. With the rise of Li-ion batteries in almost every aspect of modern technological life, having a secure, “Made in North America”, supply of strategic metals is becoming a business and security priority.
On September 1, 2015, Pierre Arcand, the Qubec Minister for Minister of Natural Resources and Minister Responsible for Plan Nord announced the award of $114,400 in grants from the Government of Qubec, Plan Nord, and from Innovation et Dveloppement Manicouagan (CLD) Baie Comeau, to Stria to conduct a prefeasibility analysis for the production of lithium metal and lithium foil in Baie Comeau, Qubec.
The purpose of the prefeasibility study is to determine the viability of Stria’s planned production facility before moving to a full feasibility analysis prior to construction. Stria anticipates completion of the initial analysis within 3 months.
All of which is more than enough to justify Stria’s decision to proceed with creating its lithium metal production line with a start up date in 2017. “We’ll initially buy feed material on the open market.” said Todd “Eventually we hope to use our own feed material from our Pontax property in Northern Quebec, but we can get started by buying the feed stock.”
Todd’s enthusiasm for starting up Stria’s lithium metal facility is driven by the fact Stria is in ongoing negotiations for off take agreements for the metal they produce.
“But there is an elephant in the room. The next generation of lithium ion batteries which are being developed right now by a number of companies worldwide intend to use Lithium metal as part of the design. An MIT spin off, SolidEnergy, recently announced that intends to start production by year’s end
Here’s the “about” for this brand new company “SolidEnergy revolutionized portable energy storage with the introduction of the “anode-free” lithium metal battery in 2014. SolidEnergy’s two material platforms, dual-layer electrolyte and ultra-thin lithium metal anode, provide transformational energy density and safety across all rechargeable lithium batteries and can be seamlessly integrated into existing Li-ion manufacturing capability. The final applications include drones, watches & wearables, smart phones, and electric cars.”
Todd commented, “SolidEnergy is claiming doubled energy storage capacity with their new battery technology. At the heart of that technology is lithium metal foil. Stria has access to the technology for lithium metal foil production and, frankly, this is a potentially huge market for that foil.”
“Strategically, we want to start selling our lithium metal into the mature primary battery, alloy and pharmaceutical markets. However we also want to be able to bring our unique lithium metal process and our capacity to work with that metal into the high growth, next generation, Li-ion battery market.” said Todd. “We need to be ready to meet quickly growing demand with a proven, tested, lithium metal foil product. So we need to start right now.”
Stria Lithium is currently in the process of raising $1,000,000 through a private placement offering to develop a pilot production plant to obtain the engineering data prior to full-scale production
At time of writing Stria was trading at 9 cents with 33.25 million shares outstanding for a market cap of $2.99 million.