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ScandiumPoweron Aug 17, 2023 5:36am
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Savannah participating EU Horizon LITHOS R&D project
Savannah participating EU Horizon LITHOS R&D projectBehold LITHOS! Delighted to announce our new European project, dealing with responsible #lithium production & refining in Europe! Why lithium? Because lithium is arguably the “most strategic critical raw material” of all Project info This high-TRL #horizoneurope Innovation Action targets “Cost-effective processing and refining of lithium into lithium hydroxide from strategic European multi-mineral lithium hard-rock projects”. LITHOS’s meta-objective is to unleash Europe’s full Li-hard-rock ore potential (total: 8.8 Mt Li2O) so as to become self-sufficient by 2030–35 in terms of made-in-Europe LiOH·H2O.LITHOS was submitted in the call HORIZON-CL4-2023-RESILIENCE-01-03: Technologies for processing and refining of critical raw materials (IA). LITHOS is coordinated by VTT (Pivi Kinnunen). The consortium includes key players in the lithium value chain, ranging from FMG, KU Leuven (SIM2 KU Leuven), BRGM, Metso, Sibanye-Stillwater’s Keliber lithium project, Technical University of Crete, Savannah Resources PLC, Imerys and Euromines. Pending the successful completion of the Grant Agreement Process, the project is set to start in a couple of months. More background on LITHOS On 16 March 2023 the EC published the #Criticalrawmaterialsact (CRMA) setting “benchmarks along the strategic raw materials value chain and for the diversification of EU supplies”. LITHOS directly contributes to the 1st and 2nd CRMA benchmarks (10% domestic extraction; 40% domestic processing). LITHOS processes and refines the ores from three “Strategic Projects” in terms of domestic battery-grade LiOH·H2O production: two spodumene-bearing pegmatite cases (Keliber, Kaustinen, Finland; Savannah’s Barroso Lithium Project, Portugal) and one Rare-Metal Granite (RMG) case (Imerys’ Beauvoir mine in France). LITHOS expands and tailors the existing Keliber & Metso flowsheet, which was developed for regular-grade spodumene ores, so that (1) the cut-off grade for spodumene ores is reduced, resulting in larger Li reserves, while (2) allowing the commercialisation of lower-grade pegmatite & RMG deposits. LITHOS triggers innovations along the value chain – mineral processing, concentrate pre-treatment & hydrometallurgical refining – allowing to deal with different levels and types of impurities in non-spodumene Li minerals (lepidolite & petalite). LITHOS gives specific attention to closed-loop water systems in the mineral processing. The overall CO2 emissions will be 50% lower than today’s benchmark (production of spodumene concentrate in Australia & refining in China).
LinkedIn post from Tom Peter Jones, Director KU Leuven Institute for Sustainable Metals and Minerals at KU Leuven https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7096781269648199680?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_feedUpdate%3A%28V2%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7096781269648199680%29