United States: American Battery Technology Co. (ABTC), a company based in Reno, Nevada that produces crucial battery materials and offers both primary minerals manufacturing and secondary minerals Lithium-ion battery recycling technologies, has completed all essential milestones for the first phase of its U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) project. A new project worth $4.5 million aims to extract Lithium Hydroxide from Nevada sedimentary claystone by designing, constructing, and operating a specialized system.

ABTC's CEO, Ryan Melsert, announced with enthusiasm that their internally developed processing train for producing battery-grade Lithium Hydroxide has achieved the necessary technical and performance milestones. An unconventional sedimentary claystone resource from Nevada will be utilized in the manufacturing process. Melsert highlights the ever-growing demand for domestically produced, low-cost, and low environmental impact Lithium Hydroxide material from automakers, battery manufacturers, and cathode refiners, and ABTC is quickly increasing its commercial operations to meet these demands from strategic partners.

ABTC has disclosed that despite a shortage of conventional Lithium resources like hard rock ores and Lithium-rich brines in the United States, there are considerable amounts of Lithium present in non-traditional deposits such as sedimentary claystone. The company has stated that previous attempts to produce battery-grade Lithium products from these unconventional sedimentary resources have been ineffective due to the utilization of processes designed for hard rock or brine-based resources, which were not economically viable.

To expand the resource pool for the domestic production of crucial Lithium materials in the United States, ABTC has partnered with DuPont, based in Wilmington, Delaware, and the University of Nevada, Reno. The project has received financial support from the Department of Energy (DOE) to create an integrated process train that can efficiently remove Lithium from such unconventional resources. The end goal is to generate a Lithium Hydroxide monohydrate product that meets the strict criteria necessary for high energy density battery cathode manufacturing.

ABTC has reached a crucial milestone in the first phase of its project by successfully manufacturing a battery-grade Lithium Hydroxide product from the Tonopah Flats claystone resource. The company confirms that the product has undergone analytical characterization and fulfills all specifications required for third-party battery cathode-grade. ABTC's process for obtaining solid Lithium Hydroxide monohydrate powder involved collecting feedstock material from a domestic sedimentary claystone resource. Next, Lithium was selectively leached from the feedstock and the resulting leachate solution was purified. The purified solution was then converted into Lithium Hydroxide material, which was further purified and crystallized to produce solid Lithium Hydroxide Monohydrate powder.

ABTC has achieved another milestone by completing a techno-economic analysis (TEA) that showcases lower production costs than conventional resources. The empirical data produced from processing the Lithium Hydroxide product was utilized to demonstrate that ABTC's internally developed technologies can generate Lithium Hydroxide material with reduced production costs compared to conventional resources and technologies when scaled for commercial use. To further reduce commercial-scale risks for these refinery operations, the company is allocating $3.3 million for integrated field operations of this set of internally developed technologies in the next phase of the project.