International Battery Metals Ltd. announced that SLR International Corporation (SLR) has completed its independent review of IBAT's first-of-its-kind modular, mobile lithium extraction plant and verified the patented technology extracts more than 65% of available lithium from brine, effectively strips out impurities and recycles and reuses more than 94% of water. The modular direct lithium extraction (MDLE) plant located in Lake Charles, Louisiana, has been flow-testing lithium-bearing brine since early May 2022, and extracting lithium chloride (LiCl) since mid-May, making IBAT the first company globally to successfully operate a commercial-scale mobile lithium extraction plant. The third-party independent review also confirmed the robust modular design of the plant and ease of transportation and relocation, which could allow access and a means to capitalize on a more diverse range of lithium-bearing brine resources globally, including smaller sites in varied terrain - such as those in the US - that are currently considered uneconomical due to the current, dominant extraction technologies.

Further, with its highly efficient capture of impurities and reinjection of brine back into the original resource, coupled with water recycling, IBAT's sustainable environmental performance enables the creation of a thriving, clean lithium extraction industry in North America and around the world. The SLR review assessed and confirmed: the modularity and mobility of the plant design; the ability to extract lithium, including: lithium extraction from the source lithium-bearing brine recovery of quality lithium chloride (LiCl) from the absorbent; efficiency of impurity rejection; performance consistency through multiple cycles, and water recovery determined from water balance calculation. As configured, the Plant is designed to produce 5,738 tonnes LiCl per year, or 5,000 tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent per year from a brine with a lithium concentration of 1,800 parts per million (ppm) of lithium.

SLR's operational review consisted of observation of continuous processing of a brine, containing 300 ppm of lithium, through the plant and monitoring the solution chemistry by sampling at regular intervals to determine the performance of the process equipment and the absorption media through three loading and elution (extraction with a solvent) cycles. The brine was sourced in the U.S. and delivered in significant volume to the plant via tanker truck. In the first phase of extraction from the raw brine, SLR found that "lithium extraction for the three cycles ranged from 72.6% Li to 87.5% Li with an average extraction of 81% Li." In the second phase, which recovers the lithium from the absorbent material to develop commercial-grade lithium chloride and lithium carbonate, recovery "ranged from 58.3% Li to 89.0% Li with an average of 68.8% Li." This is significantly higher than the industry-wide average of 50% for evaporative lithium processing, based on data from the National Renewable Energy Agency (NREL), a laboratory of the US Department of Energy.

An important part of IBAT's MDLE process is the selectivity of the absorbent, which strips out the lithium but leaves other naturally occurring elements in the brine, which allows the brine to be reintroduced into the environment, vastly reducing the overall environmental impact.