American Lithium has confirmed that all systems at its Falchani Lithium Project pilot plant in Lima, southern Peru, are fully installed and operational.
According to the company, the facility, which is being advanced by TECMMINE, is currently processing material as planned, with various components undergoing testing and performing within expected parameters.
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Recent laboratory bench testing using the pilot plant’s equipment in a semi-continuous process achieved an average lithium extraction rate of 88.7%.
Test results ranged from 88% to 89.9%, exceeding the 80% lithium recovery rate referenced in the company’s preliminary economic assessment published in February 2024.
The company stated that these results were obtained with pilot plant equipment mainly involving crystallisers and evaporators.
Lithium losses during the alum crystallisation, pre-neutralisation, neutralisation, mechanical evaporation and precipitation stages were reported to be fractions of a per cent per phase.
American Lithium indicated that with all flowsheet equipment installed and validated, the pilot plant is advancing towards full end-to-end flowsheet validation on a continuous scale.
The facility is expected to operate at target rates for over three months, processing between six tonnes (t) and 10t of Falchani mineralisation.
Data from these activities will be included in future feasibility studies for the project.
According to the company, the Falchani site’s volcanic-hosted lithium mineralisation is characterised by low impurities, enabling a comparatively simple processing flowsheet intended to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate with purity levels above 99.5%.
American Lithium president and COO Laurence Stefan said: “The results from the key core processing stages have been very encouraging. The consistency we are seeing gives us strong confidence as we move rapidly toward full pilot plant operations.
“Every stage we bring online has added to our understanding of how this deposit will perform at scale, optimising to build on the promising recent results.”
