Volt Lithium Corp. announces the successful production of battery-grade lithium carbonate from its U.S. field operations in the Permian Basin in West Texas, USA.
“Successfully producing battery-grade lithium carbonate from the Permian is another significant milestone that Volt has achieved this year,” commented Alex Wylie, President & CEO of Volt Lithium. “Volt Lithium is on track to become one of North America’s first commercial producers of lithium from oilfield brine, contributing to the security of future sources of critical minerals in North America.”
Volt has developed an innovative, proprietary DLE technology with the intent to commercially extract lithium from oilfield brines across North America. This aligns with the goal to contribute to secure a critical minerals supply chain for North America. Volt has been operating its proprietary direct lithium extraction (“DLE”) system in the field since September 17, 2024, and continues to optimize its U.S. field unit (“Field Unit”). Volt’s Field Unit provides the Company with the ability to cost-effectively and efficiently scale-up further to process commercial levels of oilfield brine.
Volt has successfully been producing lithium chloride concentrate, a precursor to lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide monohydrate and lithium metal from its Field Unit from oilfield brine produced from the Permian basin since September 17, 2024. Volt’s proprietary DLE process has successfully built up an inventory of high-quality eluate that is being converted into a 99.5% pure battery-grade lithium carbonate.
Samples of lithium carbonate have been created and verified via third-party testing for review for potential offtake partners. Volt will continue to produce lithium chloride concentrate as well as technical-grade and battery-grade lithium carbonate in the field for the remainder of 2024.
Volt’s proprietary DLE technology comprises of a three-stage process to extract lithium from oilfield brine. In stage one, Volt uses proven established processes to treat and purify oilfield brine to effectively remove up to 99% of organics and contaminants in the preparation of brine for the DLE process. In stage two, Volt uses the Company’s proprietary DLE technology to extract lithium from the brine, which on average yields up to 99% lithium extraction results to produce eluate (lithium chloride concentrate). In the final stage three, Volt purifies and concentrates the eluate that is refined in-house to a lithium carbonate, capable of meeting industry specifications for battery-grade lithium.
