Century Lithium Corp. (TSXV: LCE; OTCQX: CYDVF) has released detailed results from rare earth element test work at its 100%-owned Angel Island Lithium Project in Nevada, outlining how the same chloride-based process designed to recover lithium can also yield potentially meaningful volumes of rare earths.
Using material from a 500-tonne bulk sample, the company reports that claystone from Angel Island assayed 1,101 ppm lithium and 239 ppm total rare earth oxides (TREO), equivalent to 0.024% TREO. Metallurgical trials combining chloride leaching with ion-exchange show that rare earths enter solution under the same conditions as lithium, with subsequent ion-exchange stages delivering what Century describes as exceptionally high recoveries of both light and heavy rare earth elements.
The test work indicates that the rare earth content is split roughly 75% light rare earths and 25% heavy rare earths plus yttrium. Solution grades after leaching were around 210 mg/l lithium and 36 mg/l TREO, demonstrating that the project’s existing process route can simultaneously generate feed for lithium carbonate production and rare earth recovery.
Century Lithium emphasises that it is not yet incorporating rare earth credits into project economics, noting that further reserve definition and metallurgical work will be needed before an updated feasibility study can quantify the contribution. However, the company highlights the strategic implications: Angel Island could provide lithium carbonate, sodium hydroxide by-product and a third revenue stream from rare earths, all via a patent-pending chloride leach flowsheet that is already the basis for its updated feasibility and permitting work.
The company frames these results as reinforcing Angel Island’s role in the North American critical minerals supply chain, with potential to deliver significant quantities of rare earths over a planned mine life of around 40 years at an average 34,000 tonnes per year of lithium carbonate production.
To learn more about this, please visit https://www.centurylithium.com/
For more articles like this, please visit https://www.theassay.com/
