Business
Wealth Minerals Announces Positive Lithium Extraction Results on Samples from Laguna Verde Project
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wealth Minerals Ltd. (the “Company” or “Wealth”) - (TSX-V:WML) (OTCQB:WMLLF) (SSE:WMLCL) (Frankfu
About this update from Wealth Minerals Ltd.
[{"type":"text","content":"VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wealth Minerals Ltd. (the “Company” or “Wealth”) - (TSX-V:WML) (OTCQB:WMLLF) (SSE:WMLCL) (Frankfurt:EJZN) announces that it has received positive results from its previously announced process test work undertaken by Tenova Advanced Technologies (“TAT”) on samples from the Laguna Verde project (“Laguna Verde” or the “Project”). According to TAT’s results, the laboratory test work demonstrates that the LiP™ and LiSX™ processes for lithium extraction (Figure 1) can be applied successfully to the Laguna Verde surface brine. “The surface brines at Laguna Verde represent a potential target for lithium production and these results will be important as we continue to evaluate production options,” stated Henk van Alphen, Wealth’s CEO. “With a known surface brine and considerable potential for additional subsurface brines, the Laguna Verde project is unique. While we continue to evaluate options for processing surface brines, we also plan to drill subsurface brine targets generated from recently completed geophysical surveys.” Objectives and Results Wealth retained TAT to conduct laboratory test work on a 50-liter surface brine sample from the Laguna Verde project. The Laguna Verde brine was analyzed at approximately 220 mg/l of lithium, with calcium and magnesium being the major contaminants. Pretreatment is required in order to remove calcium and magnesium and to increase the pH of the solution. Stage I (a) Pretreatment: The objective of this stage was to evaluate the feasibility of utilizing the membrane based LiP™ process, as a pretreatment stage, to eliminate calcium and magnesium from the Laguna Verde brine solution. The test work demonstrated that TAT’s LiP™ process could be successfully applied to Laguna Verde surface brines. Approximately 88% of the calcium and 97% of the magnesium from the brine solution were removed in a two-pass system. Stage I (b) Lithium Recovery: The objective of this stage was to evaluate the feasibility of recovering lithium as Li₂SO₄ from a pretreated feed solution using a solvent extraction (“SX”) process and to estimate the purity and the recovery yield of the product. The target purity of the LiSX™ was set at 99.5% or higher. The test work demonstrated that TAT’s LiSX™ process for extraction of lithium from its aqueous solutions can be app...