Nemaska obtains Canadian patent to produce lithium hydroxide, carbonate with membrane electrolysis

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canadian lithium company Nemaska Lithium has obtained a Canadian patent for its new process of preparing lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate from spodumene sources using membrane electrolysis.

"We have an extensive patent portfolio strategy and I am pleased with the allowance of one of our fundamental patents. We have developed and continue to improve very innovative methods for producing lithium compounds that give us a leading advantage over our competitors,” technical manager Jean-Francois Magnan noted this week.

The Quebec-based firm advised that it was also pursuing patent protection on this process in multiple global jurisdictions.

Further, the TSX-V-listed company reported that it had received positive feedback from the international examiners in relation to its global patent applications WO 2015/058288 and WO 2015/123762, which covered different technologies and processes for preparing lithium hydroxide.

Nemaska had also recently filed a new patent application in the US regarding a new electrochemical process for making lithium hydroxide.

In total, Nemaska now owned rights to 13 pending patent applications that were represented by seven different patent families.

During the past three years, Nemaska’s electrolysis technology for the conversion of lithium sulphate into lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate had been successfully lab-scale tested, pilot-plant tested and tested at supplier facilities. In the past, electrolysis-based technologies had been commercially used in multiple industries and had demonstrated that they could be notably efficient and reliable. For example, over the last 50 years, the chlor alkaline industry had been using industrial processes for the electrolysis of sodium chloride.

Nemaska had succeeded in developing proprietary environment-friendly processes to produce a high-purity, low-cost lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate using membrane electrolysis technologies. The main benefits of these processes included low and predictable operating costs, virtually eliminating costly reagents such as soda ash, which, in turn, eliminated sodium sulphate by-product that had no market value and was environmentally harmful, and a significant reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions.

These processes would ultimately enable Nemaska to improve control on costs and the quality of its final lithium products for the benefit of its customers.

The company had earlier this year decided to build its Phase 1 plant and future commercial Hydromet plant in Shawinigan, Quebec, after signing an agreement in principle with local authorities for the partial acquisition of land and existing manufacturing facilities in the city.

Nemaska was developing one of the richest spodumene lithium hard-rock deposits in the world in volume and grade. Spodumene concentrate produced at Nemaska's Whabouchi mine, in the James Bay region, near the Cree community of Nemaska, would be shipped to the company's lithium hydroxide/carbonate processing plant, which would transform spodumene concentrate into high-purity lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate for the growing lithium battery market.