Lithium company sees potential for southeastern Sask.
Inside Prairie Lithium’s Emerald Park facility, the company is perfecting a method to process a mineral in extremely high demand amid a rising demand for batteries.
From the outside, it looks like any one of the many workshops that surround it.
Products like electric vehicles and cell phones are what convinced Don Bender, an engineer with the company, to enter the lithium processing field after a career in heavy oil.
“EVs started to hit mainstream, I got pretty excited about the technology and that got me excited about the underlying technology, which is the batteries that powered them,” Bender said.
Some lithium mining operations require an abundance of land, but that’s not the vision of the project. Instead, it uses a substance called “PLIX” – meaning Prairie Lithium Ion Exchange.
The PLIX is then mixed into salty brine extracted from deep below the ground at the company’s drilling rig near Torquay, Sask.
"The PLIX has hydrogen ions in it, and they swap places with the lithium ions in the brine, we then take that PLIX out of the brine, we wash it, then we recover it with a hydrochloric acid," Bender said.
The end product of the process – now in its third iteration – is a crude lithium chloride. It’s the first step towards battery-grade lithium, while the leftover brine is returned to where it was dug up.
“It wouldn't do any good if in order to transition to electric vehicles, we had to destroy our environment some more,” Bender said.
There are still questions around the future of the method, particularly whether it’s better to have one large processing plant or a series of smaller ones.
The demand for the substance is high, and the federal government recently announced a $4 billion plan for a series of rare elements, including lithium.
“We are certainly interested in fostering the development of processing related industries in this country, and so we have set aside money in the Critical Minerals Strategy,” Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson said at a press conference in Vancouver on Dec. 9.
Prairie Lithium said the federal funding shows the interest in Canadian-made rare earth projects.
The company plans to launch a full pilot project in southeastern Saskatchewan based on the work being done in Emerald Park.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Maple Leafs fall to Bruins in Game 3, trail series 2-1
Brad Marchand scored twice, including the winner in the third period, and added an assist as the Boston Bruins downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series Wednesday
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
New Indigenous loan guarantee program a 'really big deal,' Freeland says at Toronto conference
Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was among the 1,700 delegates attending the two-day First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference that concluded Tuesday in Toronto.
'Life was not fair to him': Daughter of N.B. man exonerated of murder remembers him as a kind soul
The daughter of a New Brunswick man recently exonerated from murder, is remembering her father as somebody who, despite a wrongful conviction, never became bitter or angry.