Lithium hopeful wins government grant

ASX-listed resources hopeful Lithium Australia has secured a $50,000 commercialisation grant from the federal government to develop its lithium processing technology.

It comes a day after Business News revealed a Chinese company was seeking development assessment panel approval for a $300 million lithium hydroxide processing facility in Kwinana.

The commercialisation grant is the company’s second under the entrepreneurs' program run by the Department of Industry and Science, with the first coming in March of this year.

A further grant from the state government was received in August.

The cash is going to commercialisation of the sileach process, which is designed to recover lithium from silicates without roasting, a step widely used in lithium recovery and is quite expensive.

Managing director Adrian Griffin talked up the process.

“Lithium Australia’s sileach process has the potential to catapult Australia into the forefront of the lithium battery boom by supplying optimal grade and purity material from low-energy production of lithium chemicals,” Mr Griffin said.

“These chemicals can be produced from a range of minerals, including spodumene.”

The company has previously flagged a partnership with Pilbara Minerals.

Australia is already the world’s largest producer of lithium mined from hard rocks, with about a third of international lithium production generated at the Greenbushes mine near Bridgetown.

Shares in Lithium Australia were up 14 per cent to 20 cents each at the close of trading.