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Latin Resources Limited (ASX: LRS) (“Latin” or “the Company”) is pleased to advise the latest assay results from diamond drilling at the Company’s 100% owned high-grade Colina Lithium Prospect (“Colina”), one of several prospects within the Salina Lithium Project in Brazil, has confirmed the previously reported visual spodumene estimations in hole SADD016. These results have surpassed all previous intersections, returning 25.24m @ 1.25% Li2O1 from the central area of the Colina Prospect. Mineralisation remains open to the south.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Drilling at Colina has confirmed the presence of additional wide, spodumene bearing pegmatites below any previously reported intersections, with recent drill hole SADD020 intersecting 7.46m of pegmatite with estimated 15-20% spodumene.
- The latest results from diamond drilling in the centre of the Colina Prospect have confirmed the previously reported wide spodumene pegmatite intersection in drill hole SADD016, returning 25.24 m @ 1.25 % Li2O from 94.14 m.
- The Company will undertake preliminary Dense Media Separation (DMS) metallurgical test work on the Colina Prospect drill core as a part of the Company’s fast-track strategy.
Latin Resources’ Exploration Manager, Tony Greenaway, commented:
“Our drilling at Colina continues to return excellent results, with these latest assays from drill hole SADD016 being our best intersection to date, further highlighting this central zone of Colina as a priority area for the Company.
“The discovery of a new spodumene pegmatite at depth in hole SADD020, below all our previously reported pegmatites, has highlighted the upside at Colina. We know we have additional pegmatites to test further out to the west of Colina, and now we have proven the potential for additional stacked pegmatites at depth. The more we drill at Colina, the better this prospect seems to get. Based on this newly discovered pegmatite, the Company will continue to push our drilling below our previous target depths to fully evaluate this emerging new zone.
“We are also very pleased to get some initial metallurgical test work underway. We have had very productive discussions with a number of specialist consultant groups during the recent PDAC conference including metallurgical, mining, and environmental permitting consultants. We outlined and have initiated some dense media separation test work, which will provide the Company with preliminary recovery and potential lithium concentrate grades, as well as providing guidance for a more detailed metallurgical test work program to be undertaken as part of the Company’s strategy to fast-track our exploration activities to a Maiden JORC Mineral Resource.”
Colina Prospect – Resource Definition Drilling
Latest assay results from diamond drilling at the Company’s 100% owned Colina Lithium Prospect, part of the broader Salinas Lithium Project in Brazil, have confirmed the grade of the previously reported wide pegmatite in hole SADD016 (Figure 1 and Figure 2) including2:
- SADD0016: 25.24m @ 1.25% Li2O from 94.13min
including: 7.00m @ 1.52% Li2O from 97.00m
and: 9.19m @ 1.51% Li2O from 109.00m
Visual logging of hole SADD017 drilled down dip to the east of hole SADD016, has shown multiple separate wide pegmatites (Figure 3), with the Company’s on-site field teams estimating significant zones of spodumene in the logged pegmatites (Refer to Table 1 for details).
In addition to these two results, SADD020 drilled approximately 260m to the south of SADD016, has uncovered a new thick pegmatite below any previously reported intersections, with a zone of 7.46m of spodumene bearing pegmatite at a depth of 207.08m own hole (Figure 2 and Figure 4), with logging estimating between 15-20% spodumene3.
Figure 1: Drill section A-A’ showing completed and planned drill holes, and results for SADD0164and logged pegmatite intersections for SADD017 (results pending)
These results highlight the significant upside potential for the discovery of new pegmatite zones within the Colina Prospect. With the imminent arrival of additional, larger drilling rigs capable of reaching greater depths, the Company continues to push drilling beyond previously planned depths to fully evaluate this new zone.
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LRS:AU
Forward Water Technologies
Overview
Forward Water Technologies (TSXV:FWTC) is helping lithium mining companies and other industries reduce their environmental impact through its innovative wastewater treatment technology that enables industrial operations to reduce liquid waste volume by up to 95 percent.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings continue to be a key business strategy for organizations as they impact public perception and partnership possibilities. For water-intensive industries, such as mining, sustainable wastewater management is critical.
Transformative wastewater technologies are critical for both businesses and the world’s population. In fact, unless sufficient progress is achieved, UNICEF and WHO estimate that 1.6 billion people will be without access to safe drinking water by 2030, and 2.8 billion will be without access to safe sanitation and hygiene. Water treatment technologies can disrupt current trends and improve global access to safe drinking water.
Through its Forward Osmosis (FO) technology, Forward Water is providing an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional wastewater disposal. Traditionally, wastewater disposal requires transporting untreated wastewater for deep well disposal or high-intensity thermal treatment.
Forward Water’s FO system is installed at the client site, and wastewater is treated to reduce waste volume and produce valuable clean water for reuse in the manufacturing process. Then, the significantly reduced volume of wastewater is transported and disposed of, significantly saving on transportation and disposal costs.
The FO technology targets three massive sectors: industrial wastewater, mining and food manufacturing. Forward Water’s unique and patented FO technology achieves high-rate water extraction within a low-energy continuous process. The process reduces waste and allows up to 95 percent water recovery, ready for reuse.
Forward Water’s Li-FO™ technology is ideal for lithium-brine mining operations, allowing mines to “fine tune” brine sources to improve concentration by up to 20 times. This results in improved recovery and makes lower-concentration brines economically viable. Forward Water is currently embarking on an early development testing project to further evaluate and refine the technology’s viability in lithium mining.
In 2023, the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, Forward Water Technologies Inc., licensed specific intellectual property from FUJIFILM Corporation to solidify the protection of its water treatment technology platform.
CleanTech Lithium (AIM:CTL,Frankfurt:T2N,OTC:CTLHF) has contracted FWT to provide advisory services for the support and development of CleanTech Lithium's direct lithium extraction (DLE) process in Chile. The collaboration will use FWT’s industrial forward osmosis system in the hyper-concentrating of CleanTech Lithium's eluate and its conversion into battery-grade lithium carbonate through Conductive Energy's DLE process.
Howie Honeyman, CEO, explained in an interview how the company’s technology can improve lithium mining operations. “A lot of lithium being mined today around the world is coming from underground aquifers that store the lithium brine. The challenge is that the lithium is surrounded by other minerals and salts, requiring chemical ‘tweezers’ to pluck out that lithium. What we can do is, at multiple places in that process, we can concentrate that lithium-containing water stream, which makes it far easier for these miners to handle the volumes they need to extract that lithium.”
An experienced management team with technical expertise leads the company towards further refining and deploying its technology. The team includes experts in materials science, chemistry and engineering. Additional experts in corporate administration and financing round out the leadership team to lead the company toward its goals.
Company Highlights
- Forward Water Technologies has developed a patented wastewater treatment technology that reduces wastewater volume and improves reusability across multiple industries, including mining and food manufacturing.
- The company’s Forward Osmosis (FO) technology disrupts the traditional method of wastewater disposal by reducing the amount of waste that must be transported and disposed of, directly reducing costs.
- The FO technology also improves water reusability by up to 95 percent, reducing the expense of importing water for industrial processes.
- The Forward Water Technologies Li-FO™ process is applicable in the lithium mining sector by improving concentration by up to 20 times, allowing organizations to improve extraction efficiency.
- The company has partnered with a lithium-brine extraction operation to evaluate its Li-FO™ technology.
- Forward Water Technologies is in early negotiations to deliver an FWTC forward osmosis pilot system on-site in Chile to support a customer's lithium extraction process.
- Forward Water Technologies has licensed specific intellectual property from FUJIFILM Corporation to solidify the protection of its water treatment technology platform.
- The company has been contracted by CleanTech Lithium to provide advisory services for the support and development of CleanTech Lithium's direct lithium extraction processes in Chile.
- An experienced management team with a blend of relevant technical expertise leads the company toward refining and marketing its technology.
Key Project
Forward Osmosis Water Treatment
Forward Osmosis is a naturally occurring process in which water is spontaneously drawn across a membrane when one solution is higher in salt concentration than the other. The difference in salinity, known as the osmotic gradient, creates a low-energy water treatment process.
Forward Water Technologies has leveraged the naturally occurring process to innovate its patented, three-step FO technology, enabling a 95 percent wastewater reduction and 95 percent water recovery.
Project Highlights:
- Patented Three-Step Process: Forward Water Technologies FO process achieves low-energy and high-rate water extraction with a unique three-step design:
- Water Extraction: Water is drawn across the FO membrane into a salt draw solution. The combination of the patented draw solution and unique membrane “locks” the draw solution on one side of the membrane, creating a true closed-loop process.
- Water/Salt Separation: Next, a switchable water salt (SWS) achieves water/salt separation as low-grade heat is applied, and it phases from liquid to gas. As the gas leaves the solution, clean water is left behind. The energy necessary for this step is often found in many facilities in the form of waste heat.
- Salt Draw Reconcentration: Finally, as the gas leaves the solution, it is captured within the closed-loop system and is passively cooled, causing it to phase back into liquid form as an SWS. The SWS liquid is collected and recycled back to the front of the membranes in the water extraction step, creating a continuous process.
- Widely Applicable Water Treatment: The low-energy process allows organizations across several industries to improve water reclamation and reduce wastewater by up to 95 percent. Additionally, the process allows for up to 20 times concentration, making the process amenable to lithium-brine extraction and other potential applications.
- Significant Cost Savings: The primary value proposition for the FO process is cost reduction in wastewater transportation and disposal. With the process in place, more water is reclaimed for reuse in manufacturing, which reduces the raw volume of wastewater that must be transported and disposed of.
Management Team
Howie Honeyman - Chief Executive Officer and President
Dr. Howie Honeyman has 20 years of experience commercializing new technologies at Xerox, Cabot, E Ink, Natrix Separations and as former CTO of GreenCentre Canada. Honeyman commercialized high-capacity, high-throughput membranes for bioprocessing as SVP of Natrix Separations, which has since been acquired by Millipore-Sigma. Since 2015, Honeyman has been leading Forward Water to become a premier wastewater treatment solution. Honeyman is also an inventor of record on over 50 US patents and holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of Toronto.
Michael Willetts - Chief Financial Officer
Michael Willetts has over 25 years in financial leadership roles primarily in manufacturing, from large multinational businesses to startups, both public and private. He previously worked as an engineer in the automotive industry before entering into finance at Ford Motor Company. Willets went on to progressively larger finance roles in several international automotive suppliers (Textron, GKN, DSM) and Canadian manufacturers (Armtec, Stronach International, AirBoss of America). Willetts is currently providing fractional CFO services through WD Numeric Corporate Services in the manufacturing, SaaS and cannabis industries. Willetts graduated with a BASc, BComm and MBA from the University of Windsor.
Wayne Maddever - Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Wayne Maddever received his Ph.D. in materials science engineering from the University of Toronto. Since 1985, he has held senior executive management positions with technically based businesses in start-up, turnaround or acquisition situations where his skills in change management have brought considerable success in the commercialization of new technologies. His experience in both private and public companies, domestically and internationally, spans a broad variety of industries, including bio and advanced materials, precision manufacturing, recycling, waste-to-energy and medical devices. He holds a number of patents in several fields. He is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. In addition to his duties as COO of Forward Water, he is currently portfolio manager at Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, one of the major shareholders of Forward Water.
Grant Thornley - VP Engineering Solution Sales
Grant Thornley is a business strategist with more than 25 years of experience. He has developed and grown international water/wastewater markets through innovative growth hacking techniques and processes, synergized with product development and positioning, data analytics and acceleration of go-to-market strategies through alliances and partnerships. Having expertise in chemical, mechanical and biological treatment processes as well as designing hundreds of municipal and industrial applications, Thornley brings a knowledge-to-action approach to helping clients solve problems and realize new opportunities in water reuse, energy conservation and CO2 reduction.
Leonard Seed - Director of Engineering & Operations
Leonard Seed has over 18 years of experience developing and commercializing new water and wastewater treatment technologies, primarily in a start-up environment. Seed is named as an inventor on over seven patents and has authored several publications. Seed is a professional engineer and has an MSc in environmental engineering from the University of Guelph. Leonard holds inventorship on seven US patents and is an instructor at Mohawk College teaching aspects of water treatment technologies and leading research efforts on forward osmosis.
Philip Jessop - Executive Research Director
Dr. Philip Jessop is a professor and Canada Research Chair of Green Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He also serves as the technical director of GreenCentre Canada and executive research director at Forward Water Technologies. After his Ph.D. (British Columbia, 1991) and a postdoctoral appointment (Toronto, 1992), he became a contract researcher in Japan working for R. Noyori (Nobel Prize 2001). As a professor at the University of California-Davis (1996-2003) and since then at Queen’s, he has studied green solvents and the chemistry of carbon dioxide. Distinctions include the NSERC Polanyi Award (2008), Killam Research Fellowship (2010), Canadian Green Chemistry & Engineering Award (2012), Eni Award (2013), Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada (2013), a Canada Research Chair Tier 1 (2013 to 2020), and the NSERC Brockhouse Prize (2019). He serves as chair of the editorial board for the journal Green Chemistry, has chaired three international conferences, and helped create GreenCentre Canada, a national center of excellence for the commercialization of green chemistry technologies. Forward Water is a spin-off company based on Dr. Jessop’s switchable solvents.
Quarterly Activities Report for the Period Ended 31 March 2024
Highlights
Solonópole Project, Ceará, Brazil
- Anomalous lithium values above 100 ppm (and up to 631 ppm) found in 383 soil samples within existing and new target areas.
- Integration and interpretation of these soil sample results with data from geophysics, geological mapping (138 line-km), trenching and RC drilling (~2,000m) further enhance prospectivity of existing and new targets.
- Combined datasets confirmed several swarms of pegmatite bodies striking in a NE-SW and E-W directions and identified new high priority areas.
- Nira interpreted to be the most prospective new target, with 180 soil samples of >100 ppm Li and as high as 524 ppm Li covering an area of at least 1km2.
- Nira also features 17 pegmatite outcrops with average widths of up to 30 meters and strike lengths from 200m to 600m.
- Planning for the next follow-up drilling campaign is underway.
Napperby Project, Northern Territory, Australia
- Oceana’s Napperby Project covers some of Arunta Province’s hottest granites plutons, the Wangala Granite (uranium) and Ennugan Mountains Granite (uranium/thorium).
- Both granite plutons show outstanding uranium/thorium ratios and are almost fully encapsulated within Napperby’s EL32836 and ELA32841.
- Follow-up exploration activities will target uranium and Rare Earth Elements (REEs) in parallel with Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum (LCT) pegmatites.
Corporate
- Experienced geologist and mining executive, Aidan Platel, appointed as non- executive director.
- Brazilian-based geologist, Mike Sousa, appointed as Exploration Manager and Competent Person.
- The Company remains well-funded with cash at 31 March of ~$2.67m.
OPERATIONS
Solonópole Project, Ceará State, Brazil
The Solonópole Project area is located in the state of Ceará, north-eastern Brazil and consists of ten (10) exploration permits covering approximately 124km2 (Figure 1), owned by Oceana’s subsidiary Ceará Litio. The project is approximately three to four hours by road from the state capital Fortaleza and deep-water port of Pecém, and is well serviced by sealed highways and high voltage electricity.
Figure 1: Solonópole Project permits and targets drilled in May – June 2023 (red dots)
Large-Scale Soil Sampling and Geological Mapping at Solonópole Lithium Project
The large-scale infill soil sampling program that commenced in March 2023 continued over the project area (Figure 2). The optimized sampling grids are along 200m spaced lines with 25m sampling stations, aligned north south to cut across all typical pegmatite strike directions in this area.
As at 31 March 2024, over 10,300 soil samples had been collected from Solonópole and 8,741 soil samples had been analysed by X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) for Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum (LCT) pathfinders, of which 1,908 soil samples have lab results validated by Oceana´s internal QA/QC. Anomalous lithium values above 100 ppm and up to 631 ppm were found in 383 soil samples within existing and new target areas.
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This article includes content from Oceana Lithium, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.