Lithium from Cornish granite

[dan_b]

https://www.zap-map.com/british-lithium ... h-granite/

Just seen this, not sure when it was officially announced, but this sounds like a promising step, yes?

[AE-NMidlands]

"Sustainable" is a much-abused word! They might cut out transport emissions by eliminating the journey from quarry to processing plant, but that looks trivial in comparison with all the other energy-gobbling processes. I must have missed the bit describing their huge solar (pv) farm to run it!

Why quarry and crush granite then calcine it when there are mountains of mica all around St Austell? Feldspars in granite break down to create kaolin (which has already been removed for you) leaving the mica and quartz as waste, so you just have to separate those two already-broken up fractions.

It smells to me like my mine manager friend says, "most mining developments are to enrich the projectors, with no intention - or realistic possibility - of it becoming a viable business."

When lithium is being hoovered up out of dried-up salt lakes in different parts of the world I can't see this being competitive. If the price of Lithium is so high that it is, then we should be looking for lots of alternatives to batteries.

(and cutting back on its use in cars etc. Like Greta and others say, the economy should have been put on a war footing by now, with the energy/carbon emission implications of all activities being used to decide what gets done and what we can't afford to do.)
A

[Paul_F]

Why quarry and crush granite then calcine it when there are mountains of mica all around St Austell? Feldspars in granite break down to create kaolin (which has already been removed for you) leaving the mica and quartz as waste, so you just have to separate those two already-broken up fractions.

Reading other articles, that's exactly what they're doing. They've got a mechanical process which separates out the lithium-bearing mica found "in a former china clay mine near St Austell, Cornwall", and then further processes the mica to extract the Lithium Carbonate.

[AE-NMidlands]

in which case they are not "extracting and concentrating lithium-mica from Cornish granite" are they? Why talk about crushing and calcining granite?

I think that rotted granite is called claystone, the kaolin is washed out and the residue is the sand and mica mixed. You would think that if this firm wanted backing they might describe their process a bit more carefully. Maybe they just wanted to sound macho! I don't imagine the subterfuge / misrepresentation will have put off or deceived any competitors wanting to steal their idea though...
A

[Paul_F]

in which case they are not "extracting and concentrating lithium-mica from Cornish granite" are they? Why talk about crushing and calcining granite?

I think that rotted granite is called claystone, the kaolin is washed out and the residue is the sand and mica mixed. You would think that if this firm wanted backing they might describe their process a bit more carefully. Maybe they just wanted to sound macho! I don't imagine the subterfuge / misrepresentation will have put off or deceived any competitors wanting to steal their idea though...

If you read the zap-map article carefully, they never say that they're doing this to granite rock, just "the ore" - and the first line only says that it's from the "mica in granite". Given the way this works, what's almost certainly happened is that they wrote an accurate if somewhat overblown press release, and a journalist with limited understanding of geology regurgitated it into the article above. They've got little or no editorial control over the content, and journalists are trying to get clicks not accurately pitch to investors.