The EV and home battery revolution will require lots of lithium – and new facility to be constructed in Western Australia will help to meet demand.
Tianqi Lithium Australia has announced it will build a lithium processing plant at Kwinana, an industrial precinct at Western Trade Coast – not far from Perth’s CBD.
Lithium has been mined and exported from WA for decades, but this project will see significant value adding to the resource.
“Demand for lithium is increasing rapidly thanks to its growing use for renewable energy storage and electric car batteries,” said State Development Minister Bill Marmion.
“This is very positive news for growing the State’s economy as we seek to take a greater role in processing our raw materials to produce higher value products.”
Construction of the plant is expected to start in October and be completed towards the end of 2018. 500 jobs will be created during construction and more than 115 jobs once the project is operational.
When complete, the plant will have a production capacity of 24,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide per year. By locating the plant in the Western Trade Coast precinct, Tianqi Lithium Australia will be in close proximity to all the necessary infrastructure and services required.
The Western Trade Coast is a 3,900 hectare industrial region that incorporates the Kwiwana industrial area.
Ore for the plant will be supplied by the Greenbushes mine, run by Talison Lithium and jointly owned by Tianqi and lithium producer Albemarle Corp .
Many of the world’s leading commercial energy storage and home solar battery systems are based on lithium chemistry; including Tesla Powerwall, Tesla Powerpack, sonnenBatterie Eco, Enphase AC Battery and Fronius Solar Battery.
Demand for finished lithium is currently around 160,000 tons a year, but is expected to rise to 400,000 to 500,000 tons per year over the next decade. “Finished lithium” includes lithium hydroxide.
Lithium hydroxide is produced in a reaction between lithium carbonate and calcium hydroxide. As well as battery applications, the material is used in the production of lithium greases.
Lithium hydroxide Image credit: By Mondalor – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7159838
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