JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Australia-based European Lithium has appointed a consultant for metallurgical testwork at its Wolfsberg project, aimed at accelerating the development of the lithium project in Austria.
The Tony Sage-chaired company, which was formerly known as Paynes Find Gold and last week relisted as European Lithium, appointed Dorfner Anzaplan for the testwork programme, which will optimise the design process for the Wolfsberg project.
The historical owners of Wolfsberg, Austrian State-owned Minerex, conducted metallurgical studies in the 1980s, which concluded that a 6% lithium spodumene concentrate could be obtained from the pegmatites and that marketable specifications of feldspar quarts and mica could be recovered such that 74% of the ore treated was saleable product.
European Lithium pointed out that, since the original testwork, a number of technological developments had occurred, which could have an impact on the Wolfsberg deposit, including the use of sensor-based or optical sorting to separate the dark waste rock from the light-coloured pegmatite, thereby minimising waste dilution in the ore feed to the concentrator and maximising lithium grades.
Dense-media separation (DMS) is another technology that could be applicable to the deposit. European Lithium believes that the process of crushing, screening and DMS to obtain a spodumene concentrate would be a small and low-capital-cost facility, which would give it an opportunity to fast-track limited production, while the rest of the mineral processing facilities were being constructed.
Such a concentrate could be marketed to the glass ceramic producers in Europe that are currently importing spodumene concentrate from Australia and lithium carbonate from South America.
These technologies will be early and key complements of the Dorfner Anzaplan testwork.
Sage said that European Lithium was focused on the “aggressive development” of the project. “With the fundraising and ASX listing successfully completed, the company can concentrate on the potential for fast-track production,” he commented.
Sage is the largest stakeholder in European Lithium, which recently successfully raised more than A$6-million.