Mr. Chris Doornbos reports

E3 LITHIUM'S LABORATORY TO EXPAND TO INCLUDE PRODUCTION OF LITHIUM CARBONATE

E3 Lithium Ltd. is expanding the Calgary-based lab to incorporate the equipment to complete the polishing and production of battery products, such as lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide.

E3 Lithium's development facility, located at the University of Calgary, has been operational since early 2021. The facilities' focus has been on the development and verification of direct lithium extraction (DLE) processing technologies. The internal team of experts has been beneficial in ensuring that E3 Lithium successfully completed the necessary steps toward technology development and selection, including verification testing of third party DLE processes to support the design and decision making for the commercial facility. E3 also has its own internal analytics team that enables the company to efficiently and quickly produce consistent results from the various testing processes.

With the definition of the downstream processes utilizing chemical conversion to produce lithium carbonate and then lithium hydroxide, E3 will deploy the same validation, verification and optimization strategy to the conversion processes. This includes building scaled down process equipment that mimics the commercial systems to validate and optimize the production of lithium carbonate. The team will further investigate the necessity to complete the equipment to continue from carbonate to lithium hydroxide. This work will support E3 Lithium's feasibility engineering study and future commercial operations.

"Developing this capability in-house offers significant advantages in terms of result accuracy, cost-effectiveness and flexibility," said Chris Doornbos, president and chief executive officer of E3 Lithium. "By building and operating scaled down equipment that closely mimics commercial operations, our highly skilled lab team will verify and optimize the process. The results the lab will produce will support the design and operation of the company's commercial plant and will bring efficiency to our future commercial operations by offering prompt and accurate data and analysis."

The post-DLE to lithium carbonate flowsheet

DLE technology extracts lithium ions from E3 Lithium's brine efficiently and effectively producing a lithium rich concentrate stream. The process to convert the lithium rich solution (a liquid) to lithium carbonate (a solid) utilizes conventional chemical reactions and industry standard processes and is comprised of two main steps: purification with volume reduction and precipitation of lithium products.

Purification and volume reduction:  This step removes the contaminants, mainly calcium, magnesium and boron, from the DLE lithium rich product stream, further concentrates the lithium stream and recovers water for reuse in the process. Example of process technology used in this step can include precipitation, nanofiltration, ion exchange, reverse osmosis (RO) and evaporation.

Precipitation:   The final step involves a conversion process achieved by mixing soda ash with the purified, concentrated lithium solution to produce a solid lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) precipitate.

E3 Lithium will analyze the carbonate product for impurities thereby enabling the company to gain a deeper understanding of the process requirements necessary to achieve battery-grade lithium carbonate and optimize the design and/or operating parameters if necessary. E3 Lithium will also send the carbonate produced to certified third party labs for independent validation. The company is also evaluating the development of the production of lithium hydroxide as it focuses on building the carbonate as a first step.

About E3 Lithium's lab

Located within the University of Calgary's research park, E3 Lithium's lab comprises an office space and lab facility. Fully equipped to standard lab specifications, it features essential safety installations and a range of analytical instruments for conducting a wide array of tests and experiments. The lab team consists of individuals with diverse academic backgrounds and industry experience, ensuring a multidisciplinary approach to research and development efforts.

About E3 Lithium Ltd.

E3 Lithium is a development company with a total of 16.0 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) measured and indicated and 900,000 tonnes LCE inferred mineral resources in Alberta. As outlined in E3's preliminary economic assessment, the Clearwater lithium project has an net present value 8 per cent of $1.1-billion (U.S.) with a 32-per-cent internal rate of return pretax and $820-million (U.S.) with a 27-per-cent IRR after-tax. E3 Lithium's goal is to produce high purity, battery grade lithium products to power the growing electrical revolution. With a significant lithium resource and innovative technology solutions, E3 Lithium has the potential to deliver lithium to market from one of the best jurisdictions in the world.

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