Stria Announces its Summer Exploration Drilling Program and Further Development of its Proprietary Processing Technologies
OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Jun 26, 2014) - Stria Lithium Inc. (TXS VENTURE:SRA) ("Stria" or the "Company") is pleased to report the commencement of its summer 2014 exploration drilling program at its Willcox brine lithium project in southeast Arizona.
Stria is the sole owner of the Willcox brine property and the Pontax spodumene lithium project located in the James Bay region of Northern Quebec. The Company is developing two distinct, environmentally sustainable processing technologies for both projects.
The purpose of the 2014 Willcox drilling program is to confirm historic exploration results and to test groundwater samples for use in Stria's proprietary membrane processing technologies now under development. This technology will allow Stria to recover lithium from brine type deposits without the need of large scale evaporation ponds and their associated environmental impacts.
On May 20, 2014, the company announced the successful completion of its Phase 1 "proof of principle" development of a novel, hard rock ore-to-lithium metal process for application at its Pontax spodumene project in Quebec.
The potential benefits of the technologies is that they require less controls; less chemistry via the recycling of chemicals; require less energy due to energy recycling; reduce capital costs from the construction of smaller, compact processing facilities, and; the combination of a simple process and compact design enable easy automation.
Stria President and Chief Operating Officer Julien Davy said the company's ultimate goal is to produce high-purity (99.999%) lithium metal or other lithium compounds that meet the needs of battery manufacturers for an environmentally sustainable supply option that dramatically reduces costs. "Any lithium process that significantly reduces production costs will help changing the battery market," said Mr. Davy.
"Completion of our Phase 1 spodumene process investigation was by far the most difficult part of development. Now all our efforts will be devoted to the testing stages," said Mr. Davy.
"Unlike the Willcox brine process which builds upon existing and proven technologies, our proprietary, hard rock process is being developed in house and is unique to Stria Lithium," Mr. Davy said.
He said Phase 2 development, now underway, is intended to optimize recoveries and reaction kinetics, and finalize the downstream process steps. "These metallurgical steps are known in the mining industry. Now with Phase 1 in hand, we can move towards the final steps in our process to recover a high-purity product in a sustainable way as we recycle as much as possible the process chemicals," Mr. Davy said.
In the meantime, this step will generate data to be applied in the company's next step, the construction of a bench scale pilot plant.
The Company's intent is to position itself as a new, green technology source of technology lithium, an irreplaceable component for current and next-generation batteries.
Lithium metals today represent about 30% of global lithium consumption. By 2025, it is estimated that global consumption from the battery manufacturing sectors will account for some 65% of total global consumption.
About Stria Lithium Inc.
Stria Lithium (TSX VENTURE:SRA) owns the Pontax spodumene lithium property in Northern Quebec and the Willcox brine lithium property in southeastern Arizona. As announced in January 2014, Stria is developing proprietary, in-house processing technologies for both projects with the purpose of reducing costs on an environmentally sustainable basis.
Stria's technologies, based on recovering lithium metal directly from ore and from brine liquids, will be more efficient, will require fewer controls, less chemistry and require less energy from compact facilities designed to enable easy automation.
Qualified Person: This news release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Julien Davy, P.Geo., M.Sc., MBA, President and COO of Stria and a Qualified Person under NI 43-101 Guidelines.
Forward Looking Statement - Disclaimer
This news release may contain forward-looking statements, being statements which are not historical facts, and discussions of future plans and objectives. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove accurate. Such statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and future events to differ materially from those anticipated or projected. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations are in our documents filed from time to time with the TSX Venture Exchange and provincial securities regulators, most of which are available at www.sedar.com.
