Bassomatic:   "They claim 80-85% lithium recovery."  Re: Cypress Development.

OK, back to the PFS of 2018 for LAC.  Page 82.  Overall recovery is listed as 87.7%

Page 81 may be of more interest.  It shows different percent recovery depending on the ore types.  Table 13.1 is the focus and it shows per cent recovery for LG Type 1 and LG Type 2 (Low Grade ores) and for HG Type 1 and HG Type 2 (High Grade ores).   Values vary between 80.8 to 96.95%, depending on the grade of the ore sample in regard to acid leaching extraction of the lithium clay samples from Thacker Pass.

That extraction information is from the 2018 PFS, so it is possible that the Processing Plan of LAC in Reno has discovered some improvements in the leaching process since 2018 and that the per cent extraction numbers to be published in the DFS study, whenever it is published, will be higher than the values shown on Table 13.1.

The numbers compare favorably with the information from Cypress:  "Testing resulted in 80.2% extraction of lithium when a sodium chloride solution was used instead of distilled water in leaching claystone under Cypress’ sulfuric acid leach process."

LAC's PFS numbers for lithium extraction also compare favorably with an alternative method proposed by Cypress:

"An alternate approach was tested using hydrochloric acid instead of sulfuric acid in leaching the claystone. A lithium extraction of 85.3% was obtained, suggesting hydrochloric acid may be a more effective reagent if high chloride levels are present in the water used in leaching."

To be repetitive with my earlier statement, hopefully the LAC Processing Lab at Reno has been doing more than just twidling their thumbs these past 2 years and has come up with improvements in the processing proposed for the lithium clay at Thacker Passs and that the new "overall recovery" number is in excess of the previous 87.7% figure.  Since LAC continues to "run in silent mode" regarding anything to do with the Processing Lab at Reno we won't probably know any more until the new DFS is published, if then.

What we do know is that the basic figures 2 years ago were already more favorable to lithium extraction per cent than the more recent figures published by Cypress.

Okiedo

Hope this helps.   Okiedo