Mining firm makes lithium hydroxide breakthrough

Cornish Lithium has repurposed a former china clay quarry

A mining company from Cornwall said it has become the first in the UK to produce lithium hydroxide monohydrate (LHM).

LHM is a key element of lithium-ion batteries and found in electric vehicles, grid scale battery storage and batteries in consumer electronics.

Cornish Lithium has repurposed a former china clay quarry and used patented low-carbon processing technology to produce LHM extracted from Cornish granite.

Founder and executive chairman Jeremy Wrathall said it was an important day for his company and the UK.

"We can test every single stage of it on an industrial scale, that's why it is such an important day for us," he said.

"Our faith in investing £10m in this project has been vindicated."

Experts said it was a major step forward for Cornwall, but would also help secure a domestic supply of a key material for UK industry.

James McFarlane, a technical mining consultant, said: "The company was only founded in 2016 and I believe only started really looking at the hard rock potential in St Austell, in 2019.

"So to get from there to producing LHM domestically from their own deposit, is a massive milestone and one that really needs to be applauded for the amount of hard work that has gone into it."

Cornish Lithium said it planned to build a full-size lithium processing and refining plant with an annual capacity of up to 10,000 tonnes.

It could be in full-scale production in 2029, potentially creating 300 jobs and injecting £800m into the UK economy, it said.