Apr 23 2014
BACANORA MINERALS LTD. is pleased to announce results of bench scale metallurgical and mineral process testing conducted by the Metallurgical Division of Inspectorate Exploration & Mining Services Ltd. on clay composite samples from the La Ventana lithium concession, owned 100% by Bacanora, and the El Sauz concession, held under Joint Venture #1 with Rare Earth Minerals PLC, each of which is located in Sonora, Mexico.
The Company's pilot plant uses a roast-leach process to take lithium into solution from the clays and the resulting solution is reduced in volume by evaporation in order to concentrate lithium. After duplicating this process in its independent laboratory, Inspectorate concluded that lithium carbonate product with over 99% purity was achieved from condensed leach solutions in laboratory scale test work. XRD ("x-ray diffraction") performed on products from two test samples confirmed over 99.5% lithium carbonate purity as mineral zabuyelite. These test results have been confirmed on duplicate samples tested under similar process parameters at the Company's pilot plant in Hermosillo.
Martin Vidal, President of Bacanora, commented, "We are very pleased to be able to produce battery grade lithium carbonate from our pilot plant and are further excited to have had this work independently verified by an arm's length, third party laboratory. It is our intention to use the results of this work to move the project forward to the pre-feasibility stage, with engineering work designed to develop a commercial scale lithium carbonate recovery plant for the La Ventana clays. In addition, successful production of high purity lithium carbonate in tests of clay composite samples from the adjoining El Sauz concession, under joint venture with REM, further demonstrates the significant economic potential of the Sonora Lithium Project."
Source: http://www.bacanoraminerals.com