Lithium-brine processing economical, Rodinia's Diablillos set to benefit from growing demand for the metal

Economical brine sources of lithium were rare until several salars in the Andes Mountains of South America were discovered to contain significant deposits of lithium salts. To make them productive, considerable research, exploration, and transportation of experienced personnel and materials is necessary, it was learned  by investors and analysts at a lecture hosted by Toronto-based lithium explorer Rodinia Lithium (CVE:RM) this afternoon.
Although lithium is present in many igneous rocks and some brines, it is generally not found in high concentrations, leaving few mineral and brine deposits with sufficient size and grade that are of commercial interest.
Lithium can be produced from either hard rock or from brine, but brine is considered better from an economical point of view, as it is time, energy and cost intensive to extract it from rock.
The economics of recovering lithium carbonate from brine are particularly favourable when solar evaporation can be used as this further reduces energy consumption, and requires low capital investment and low costs of operation. Recovery from brines is also environmentally friendly as nearly all the chemicals produced and used can be either recycled or sold.
Typically, brine is pumped from subsurface aquifers, through a circuit of evaporation ponds to increase concentration. High grades, low magnesium ratios and high specific yield rates are required to ensure enough contained brine will drain out of a formation by pumping.
In addition to the effective solar evaporation process, the South American salars are in areas that have low rainfall, lots of sun, and high winds, therefore allowing the highly concentrated brines to be produced at a reasonable cost and used as feed stock for a plant-making lithium carbonate.
Lithium's characteristics make it suitable for a number of uses, but for many years, the metal was used mainly in the production of ceramics, glass and as a strong aluminum alloy. However, demand for lithium has since boomed due to the advent of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, used in anything from watches and cell phones, to BlackBerrys, iPods and for electric vehicles, power tools and military equipment.
Rodinia is poised to benefit from this growing demand. Its Salar de Diablillos lithium-brine project in Salta, Argentina, which will use the solar evaporation process, contains a recoverable inferred brine resource of 2.8 million tones lithium carbonate equivalent from an in-situ inferred brine resource of 4.9 million tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent.
The project, which is also being explored for the commercialization of a potash co-product through the lithium harvesting process to boost economics, also contains a recoverable inferred brine resource of 11.2 million tonnes potassium chloride equivalent, from an in-situ inferred brine resource of 19.83 million tonnes potassium chloride equivalent.
Throughout the year, Rodinia has been continuing to develop the project by completing additional drilling in an effort to advance the asset through to a preliminary economic assessment.
In August, the company successfully confirmed the dominant lithologies identified by the company's reverse circulation drilling campaign at Diablillos, with the vast majority of litholigies intersected being sand and gravel, which tend to produce acquifers with high specific yield values, it said, seen by the company as favourable for production wells. This marks an important step in de-risking its project.
In addition, the company announced that drilling and installation of the first pump test well has been completed, and that an additional acquifer was identified in the fractured basement through diamond drilling, potentially increasing the resource at the site.
The Diablillos property is located approximately 145 kilometres southwest of the city of Salta, a few kilometers north of the border between the Provinces of Salta and Catamarca, Argentina. Rodinia’s property covers the entirety of the Salar de Diablillos nucleus, and a vast majority of the margin land with only approximately 600 hectares in the hands of private individuals.
Aside from its Argentina property, Rodinia also holds 100% mineral rights to approximately 70,000 acres in Nevada's lithium-rich Clayton Valley in Esmeralda County, and is currently in the process of assessing the size, quality and processing alternatives of this deposit.
The Clayton Valley project is located in the only known lithium-brine bearing salt lake in North America, and looks to represent the only new source for domestic lithium carbonate supply.