E3, Pure Lithium advance battery plant plan to tap Alberta brine

E3 Lithium (TSXV: ETL) (OTCQX: EEMMF) has extended its partnership with Pure Lithium to advance the design of an anode and battery pilot plant in Alberta as well as study taking it to a commercial level. 

Under a joint development agreement announced on Tuesday, the parties are to work over the next 12 months to complete a preliminary economic assessment, continue the joint scale-up efforts, and design a lithium metal anode and battery pilot facility to be built near Calgary. It would use E3’s lithium in concentrate.

“Integrating the E3 DLE flow sheet with Pure Lithium’s electrodeposition technology shows significant promise to deliver low-cost, sustainable batteries that would be industry leading,” E3 CEO Chris Doornbos said in a release.

Shares of E3 Lithium surged more than 10% to close at $1.55 apiece in Toronto on Tuesday. They eased to $1.51 at mid-Wednesday giving the company a market capitalization of $113.7 million. The stock traded between $0.92 and $5.72 over the past 52 weeks.

Vanadium batteries

After the studies, the companies are to consider the pilot plant’s operation.  They aim to produce 200-kg lithium metal anodes used in lithium metal vanadium rechargeable batteries.

If the pilot is a success, the collaboration could lead to the world’s first vertically integrated lithium metal battery technology. The combined process, according to E3, eliminates the need to produce a lithium salt as an intermediary step and could provide a much more simplified process flow sheet.

The new deal follows a memorandum of understanding signed by the companies in June 2022 to test the production of lithium from E3’s brine sources. Since then, Pure Lithium has been able to produce lithium metal cells that have higher energy density than today’s lithium-ion batteries, and don’t contain nickel, cobalt or graphite, the company says. 

E3 said last week it’s getting $5 million from the Alberta government to support its lithium brine demonstration facility as it vies to become the oil-producing province’s first producer of the battery metal.

The company’s Clearwater project in Old’s, Alta. released a prefeasibility study in June reporting the first lithium brine proven mineral reserves in Canada. It estimated the project’s cost at $2.5 billion. 

Lithium from salts

Based in Boston, Pure Lithium has developed a new method for producing battery-ready pure lithium metal electrodes from salts. The proposed battery facility would combine its patented “brine-to-battery” technology with E3’s lithium brines, the largest in Canada, and concentrate production.

“After two years of diligent work, E3 has continuously provided Pure Lithium with lithium concentrate,” Emilie Bodoin, founder and CEO of Pure Lithium, said in the release.

“Producing our lithium metal anodes from concentrate dramatically reduces the cost of battery production and removing the need to prepare anodes for shipping will lead to increased performance in the battery.”

E3 owns the Clearwater project located between Red Deer and Calgary, where it is testing a direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology to feed naturally occurring lithium from oilfield brines. It is expected to generate 20,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide annually over a 20-year life.

Last year, the company opened its pilot testing facility, the first in the province, to test the DLE method using the Clearwater brines.