Tag Archives: Trelavour

Cornish Lithium opens UK’s first low-emission, lithium hydroxide demo plant

Energy minerals, Environmental, Mineral processing, Mineral project development, Mining services, Sustainable mining, , , ,

Cornish Lithium has opened the UK’s first low-emission, lithium hydroxide Demonstration Plant, marking, it says, a significant milestone in the UK’s transition to clean power by 2030.

The new facility forms part of Cornish Lithium’s Trelavour Hard Rock project in Cornwall, which will reduce the UK’s reliance on carbon-intensive, imported lithium by extracting supplies of this critical mineral domestically in a sustainable manner. From 2027, the project targets production of 10,000 t/y of battery-grade lithium hydroxide. When combined with Cornish Lithium’s geothermal lithium projects, this creates a 2030 planned total of 25,000 t/y of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), meaning that Cornish Lithium alone expects to provide around 25% of all of the lithium needed by UK industry.

This demonstrates the industrial scale of the UK’s lithium potential and reinforces the sector’s call to government to set a domestic national extraction target of 50,000 t/y by 2030.

Trelavour has been designated as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project by the UK Government. This is in recognition of the scale of the project and the economic and growth impact it will have on businesses nationwide through the domestic extraction, processing and use of lithium. In Cornwall specifically, it is forecast that Cornish Lithium will contribute a GVA of at least £800 million ($1.04 billion) to the local economy and create over 300 Cornwall-based jobs from 2027 over the life of the project.

The Demonstration Plant takes lithium-enriched granite, mined from a former china clay pit revitalised by Cornish Lithium, and processes it to produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide using the Lepidico processing technology. Cornish Lithium has the exclusive right in the St Austell region to use the technology, which is expected to reduce carbon emissions by at least 40% compared to hard rock lithium mining elsewhere in the world.

The new Demonstration Plant has been funded as part of an investment package from a group of leading institutional investors led by the former UK Infrastructure Bank which has now become the National Wealth Fund, alongside The Energy & Minerals Group and TechMet. The hydrometallurgical section of the Demonstration Plant has also been partially funded via a grant from the UK Government via the Automotive Transformation Fund’s Scale up Readiness Validation program.

Jeremy Wrathall, CEO, Interim Chairman and Founder of Cornish Lithium, said: “Lithium is critically important to the manufacturing of electric vehicles, grid scale electricity storage and rechargeable industrial and consumer electronics. By 2030, it is expected that the UK will need circa-110,000 t of lithium carbonate equivalent.

“The UK currently imports 100% of the lithium it uses, yet we’re home to the largest lithium resource in Europe with enough beneath our feet in Cornwall to supply over half of what the electric vehicle industry needs. This is a huge untapped advantage that is currently being wasted, when it could be making our industries more competitive and resilient to global supply chain volatility. At Cornish Lithium, we want to turn that around to provide a stable supply of critical minerals needed for the UK’s new battery industry to kickstart economic growth and make Britain a clean energy superpower.

“The opening of the Demonstration Plant is a landmark moment for Cornish Lithium as this means we can now confirm at a semi-industrial scale the viability of extracting lithium from the mica mineralisation found in Cornwall. Located less than one kilometre from the mine site, we will be able to produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide on a single, integrated site, without the need for further carbon-intensive shipping or refining.”

Cornish Lithium’s Trelavour Hard Rock project is just one element of Cornwall’s critical minerals potential. The company is also pioneering the extraction of lithium from geothermal waters that run deep beneath the county’s surface, with the potential by-product of carbon-free heat energy. Cornish Lithium believes that this is a low-impact, highly innovative opportunity that potentially extends across the whole of Cornwall. The company has therefore secured extensive mineral rights agreements across Cornwall in order to maximise this opportunity and develop a major new industry based on the extraction of lithium and geothermal heat energy.

“Domestic lithium extraction is an industrial-scale asset to the UK and our launch of Britain’s first lithium hydroxide Demonstration Plant near St Austell demonstrates that this environmentally responsible modern industry is moving forward,” Jeremy Wrathall concludes.

ERM to lead ESIA for Cornish Lithium’s Trelavour hard-rock mine project

Energy minerals, Environmental, Mineral exploration, Mineral project development, Mining services, , , , , , ,

ERM has been appointed by Cornish Lithium to lead the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for the Trelavour hard-rock mine project in Cornwall, UK.

The project is a key step towards developing a domestic supply of lithium that will accelerate the UK’s path to net-zero, ERM, a pure play sustainability consultancy, says.

Cornish Lithium is a mineral exploration and development company supporting the UK’s transition to renewable energy by developing a supply of lithium for electric vehicles and power storage batteries. The company is helping to enable a modern-day renaissance of Cornwall’s 4,000-year mining heritage by aiming to extract lithium in an environmentally-responsible manner from both geothermal waters and hard rock. The lithium extracted from hard rock in a repurposed china clay pit at Trelavour Downs will produce around 8,000 t/y of battery-grade lithium hydroxide.

ERM has been engaged to develop the ESIA to international standards in parallel with the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) required to secure planning consents for the hard-rock mine. The scope of ERM’s work includes environmental baseline development and social impact studies alongside the full suite of technical studies needed to inform the ESIA and EIA processes. ERM’s work will help to enable the feasibility study required to secure the necessary planning and permitting consents for building and operating the commercial plant, it says

Dr Simon Randall, Partner Lead for Capital Project Delivery at ERM, said: “We are delighted that Cornish Lithium has selected ERM to support the Trelavour hard-rock mine development. It builds on our recent history of working together on a variety of studies for the hard rock and geothermal aspects of Cornish Lithium’s development.

“Our appointment reflects the breadth of ERM’s capabilities from national scale techno-economic studies through to detailed permitting for process plants. We look forward to applying our global expertise in successful ESIA delivery for other lithium mines to this exciting project, which will support the UK’s transition to net-zero whilst delivering substantial economic growth in Cornwall.”

Cornish Lithium recently announced an initial $67 million funding package from a group of leading institutional investors led by the UK Infrastructure Bank alongside The Energy & Minerals Group and TechMet. The funding will enable the company to progress to a construction-ready state at Trelavour Downs, and to complete the engineering design work required to build a demonstration-scale geothermal waters extraction facility.

Kate Harcourt, Cornish Lithium’s ESG Officer, said: “We are pleased to appoint ERM to undertake these important studies, which will from an integral part of the Trelavour project’s feasibility study. We have built up a great working relationship with the ERM team and look forward to strengthening this relationship with them as they support Cornish Lithium’s work to bring the Trelavour project to a construction ready state.”

Cornish Lithium engages Ai Process Systems for hydromet work on TreLith demo plant

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Cornish Lithium says it has engaged Ai Process Systems Limited, one of the UK’s leading specialist process engineering consultancies, to provide detailed engineering, procurement, supply and manufacture, installation and commissioning services (EPCC) for the hydrometallurgical section of the demonstration scale processing plant at the company’s TreLith Processing Site associated with the Trelavour hard-rock lithium project near St Austell, in the UK.

The hydrometallurgical section of the demonstration plant will use the patented Lepidico L-Max® and LOH-Max® processing technologies, which Cornish Lithium has an exclusive licence for to produce lithium hydroxide. These elements of the plant are being partly funded through a £1.8 million ($1.92 million) grant from Innovate UK through the Automotive Transformation Fund’s Scale up Readiness Validation competition.

The plant is expected to produce commercial samples of lithium hydroxide for evaluation by end users, such as battery producers and automotive OEMs. In addition, it will produce samples of by-products such as gypsum, sulphate of potash, caesium and rubidium sulphate alum. The company has already undertaken detailed metallurgical testing of these processes at pilot scale but will now build a demonstration-scale plant to validate the scale up and commercial viability of the technology, it said.

Jeremy Wrathall, CEO and Founder of Cornish Lithium, said: “We are delighted to be working with Ai Process as one of the UK’s leading specialist process engineering consultancies. Our Trelavour project team has developed a strong relationship with the team at Ai Process and we look forward to collaborating with them to successfully deliver the demonstration plant.

“The demonstration plant will not only provide further validation of Lepidico’s processing technology but will also provide key operational data to inform and enable the construction of a commercial-scale plant. This work will be key to developing a secure domestic supply of lithium from Cornwall to support the development of a resilient electric vehicle supply chain for the British automotive industry.”

Alan Parry, Managing Director of Ai Process, said: “It is a privilege to be working with Cornish Lithium on such a prestigious engineering project, which we believe is the first of its kind in the UK. This kind of lithium extraction process will form part of the next ‘industrial revolution’ in the renewables sector and we are proud to be working alongside a progressive company at the forefront of this new technology.

“Both companies have worked extremely hard together over the last year, making this project possible, we therefore look forward to delivering a successful engineering installation for both our companies, from our base near Burnley in Lancashire, to the beautiful surrounds of Cornwall.”