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- Hawkstone Mining (HWK) has announced lithium carbonate from its Big Sandy Project in Arizona has achieved a purity level of 99.7 per cent
- Hazen Research was appointed to undertake metallurgical test work on lithium drill core from Big Sandy
- The test work also showed overall lithium recoveries of 90 per cent with minimal losses in downstream processing
- Importantly, a 99.7 per cent purity level exceeds the benchmark for battery-grade lithium of 99.5 per cent purity
- Hawkstone is positioning the Big Sandy Project to be a battery-grade lithium carbonate producer to support the United States’ goal of net-zero emissions by 2050
- Next up, Hazen will commence bench-scale testing to potentially also produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide
- Hawkstone is also seeking approval for a drilling program to extend Big Sandy’s existing resource
- Company shares are up 35 per cent on the back of this news and are trading at 5.4 cents
Hawkstone Mining (HWK) has announced that Hazen Research has produced lithium carbonate at 99.7 per cent purity from the Big Sandy Project in Arizona.
In November last year, Hawkstone appointed Hazen to begin metallurgical test work on drill core from its lithium project as part of its goal to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate.
The test work also demonstrated overall lithium recoveries of 90 per cent with minimal losses in downstream processing and validated Hawkstone chosen processing method.
Excitingly, a 99.7 per cent purity level exceeds the benchmark for battery-grade lithium of 99.5 per cent purity — positioning the company well to continue producing a competitive product and initiate offtake discussions.
“The company is pleased to announce the extremely positive steps being made by Hazen Research in the initial bench scale testing of the Big Sandy lithium mineralisation, with battery grade lithium being produced, as we progress in developing a preliminary process flow sheet that will be utilised in the upcoming bench-scale testing,” Hawkstone Mining Managing Director Paul Lloyd said.
Now that the initial test work has been completed, Hazen is planning bench-scale and pilot-scale testing. Bench-scale testing is expected to commence this month and will take around three to four months. This work aims to evaluate the options to produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide as well as lithium carbonate.
Concurrently, Hawkstone will undertake resource drilling at the Big Sandy Project to extend its known resource.
Big Sandy has an existing indicated and inferred JORC resource of 32.5 million tonnes at 1850 parts per million (ppm) lithium for 320,800 tonnes of lithium carbonate. This represents just 4 per cent of the project area that contains an estimated exploration target of between 271.1 million tonnes and 483.15 million tonnes at 1000 to more than 2000 ppm lithium.
Before drilling can get under way, Hawkstone must first be granted approval from the Bureau of Land Management.
Based on the recent test results, Hawkstone is well positioned to support the United States’ vision of becoming an entirely clean energy economy and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Company shares are up 35 per cent and are trading at 5.4 cents at 10:18 am AEDT.
