Imerys British Lithium In-house Laboratory

Our processing facility in Roche was initially established in 2019 to process exploration samples.

Building on this and an Innovate UK grant, at the end of 2020 and start of 2021 our lab was expanded significantly with a range of equipment for demonstrating our mineral processing approach as well as our chosen lithium refinery route.

Key geological processing equipment includes:

• Core saw for diamond core splitting
• Jaw crusher for crushing material from max. 75mm to a size of 2mm
• Riffle boxes and a rotary sample divider
• Olympus portable X-Ray Fluorescence Analyser
• Ring Pulveriser
• Dust extractor and an Airbench for dust control
• Walk-in oven
• Pycnometry equipment and other ancillaries

The most important pieces of equipment in our mineral processing and lithium refining pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy laboratories are:

• Bespoke mineral beneficiation circuit including various pumps and a water feed and recycling system
• Screening equipment including a large diameter screen and a range of sieves
• Continuous multi-zone rotary calciner to mobilise Li in the micas
• Continuous stirred tank reactors including heating and chilling equipment
• Evaporators, stills and condensers
• Extensive suite of laboratory glassware and other ancillaries for selective precipitation and further lithium refining
• Vacuum filtration, filter presses and oven for sample drying