Arizona Lithium Limited (ASX:AZL) (“Arizona Lithium”, “AZL” or the “Company”) a company focussed on the sustainable development of the Big Sandy Lithium Project (“Big Sandy”, “Project ”) in Arizona is pleased to announce the commencement of the scoping study for the Project, with the Company engaging Tucson, Arizona-based Ausenco Engineering USA South, Inc. (“Ausenco”) to complete the study.
With the recent metallurgical advances and the imminent US BLM approval of a Stage 3 drilling program expected, the Company is focused on project implementation with Ausenco to examine all aspects of the Project from mining, through to processing and production. Promising new avenues are emerging to capitalise on the excellent infrastructure near the Big Sandy Lithium Project in Arizona, coupled with the strong Federal and Arizona stakeholder support for lithium and battery development.
Arizona Lithium Mining Managing Director, Paul Lloyd, commented: “The previously announced excellent metallurgical results demonstrate the significant potential of the Big Sandy Lithium Project and, with these results in hand, the Company has appointed Arizona based Ausenco Engineering to complete a scoping study. This represents the first step in the process of evaluating extraction, treatment and transportation options, identifying key cost centres, that allow for evaluation and optimisation, thereby creating optimum value, while making the Project a global model for responsible and sustainable mining.
“Given the large existing JORC compliant lithium resource with excellent upside potential, AZL’s ability to produce a high-quality product in Arizona, USA, in a market with rapidly increasing demand and price, along with quality infrastructure choices and proactive State and Federal Governments, presents a highly promising future for Arizona Lithium and its shareholders.”
Recent results from bench-scale metallurgical test work by Hazen Research on mineralised material from the Big Sandy Lithium research include:
- Ore beneficiation has produced a concentrate containing 71% of the lithium in 36% of the whole ore mass.
- Four-hour duration leaching tests on the concentrate at 700C have yielded 87% lithium extraction.
- Sulfuric acid consumption of 490 kg/mt on the beneficiated concentrate, the equivalent of 176 kg/mt for the whole ore body.
- Ongoing test work is ramping up to produce larger quantities of beneficiated concentrate to increase the scale of the leaching tests enabling leach circuit optimisation.
- Sufficient quantities of leach solutions will be produced for optimisation of purification methods and the production of battery grade lithium carbonate, with Hazen producing “battery grade” 99.85% lithium carbonate in previous test work on the Big Sandy lithium mineralised material. AZL’s current processing flow sheet is now determined.
However, to continually improve the approach, concurrent test work to improve product quality and reduce operating costs employing promising new technologies is planned for:
- Leach solution purification using ion exchange;
- Improved crystallisation methods for the final product; and
- Later recovery of lithium from beneficiation waste.
