Standard Lithium Completes Commissioning and Commences Full-time Operation of Its Lithium Extraction Demonstration Plant

EL DORADO, Ark., May 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Standard Lithium Ltd. (“Standard Lithium” or the “Company”) (TSXV: SLL) (OTCQX: STLHF) (FRA: S5L) an innovative technology and lithium development company, is pleased to announce the successful start-up of the Company’s industrial-scale Direct Lithium Extraction Demonstration Plant at Lanxess’ South Plant facility in southern Arkansas (the “Site”). This first-of-its-kind plant, using Standard Lithium’s proprietary LiSTR Direct Lithium Extraction technology, has been successfully commissioned during the first part of 2020 and is now operating on a 24/7 basis, extracting lithium directly from Lanxess’ tail brine (see news dated 02^nd December 2019 for additional details).  Standard Lithium’s project team in Arkansas is now commencing a series of systematic optimisation exercises in order to fine-tune the plant and investigate how performance can be improved further.

            KEY FEATURES OF THIS DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY

• Produces lithium chloride (LiCl) directly from un-concentrated raw brine;
• Reduces recovery time from months to less than a day;
• Eliminates the massive environmental footprint of evaporation ponds;
• Returns virtually all water to the source aquifer;
• Not affected by weather conditions;
• Vastly increases recovery efficiencies to as much as >90%; and,
• Unlocks large-scale unconventional brine resources.

The LiSTR demonstration plant is designed to continuously process an input tail brine flow of 50 gallons per minute (gpm; or 11.4 m3/hr) from the Lanxess South Plant, which is equivalent to an annual production of between 100-150 tonnes per annum of Lithium Carbonate. The highly automated, three-story demonstration plant includes an integrated office and control room, as well as a full, process-specific analytical laboratory.

Dr Anno Borkowsky, responsible for the Lithium Project on the board of LANXESS AG said “From our point of view, all steps have gone very well so far. With Standard Lithium and LANXESS, two strong partners with great experience in the world of chemical engineering have joined forces here. This makes me very confident that we will exploit all the possibilities of this project.”

Dr Andy Robinson, Standard Lithium President and COO, commented: “this is an extremely exciting time for Standard Lithium and our project partner, LANXESS. Our team has been working tirelessly over the last few months to fully commission the plant, despite the challenges of working in a necessarily modified and restricted operating environment. COVID-19 related limitations have complicated some of the commissioning activities, but our team, led by Mr. Bruce Seitz has done a fantastic job to safely and effectively get the plant commissioned, and transition it into full-time operation. The plant is now extracting lithium directly from Lanxess’ tail brine, on a continuous 24/7 basis and we look forward to providing additional news regarding its performance.”