Update on Lithium Extraction Technology Provisional Patent
Update on Lithium Extraction Technology Provisional Patent
-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-
Montréal, January 30 , 2019 – St-Georges Eco -Mining Corp. (CSE: SX) (OTC: SXOOF)
(FSE: 85G1) would like to provide important information in regards to the provisional patent
filing mention in its January 20, 2019 press release and pertaining to its lithium extraction
technology initiatives.
In the Company last press release, the text rega rding the provisional patent fi led under the name
‘Method of Mineral Recovery’ was incomplete as it omitted important elements of the
innovation claim contained in St-Georges provisional filing.
The portion of the text related to lithium extraction technology refers solely to the prior art on
which the St-Georges innovation and new patent evolves from. It covers a portion of stage 1, the
concentration phase, and is being improved upon.
This prior art comes from United States Patent 4098687, Published 07/04/1978 and titled
‘Beneficiation of lithium ores by froth flotation’. This patent is now in the public domain.
(…), the lithium values fraction of lithium -containing ores is floated from gangue slimes,
preferably without the use of a desliming step, by a froth flotat ion process wherein an aqueous
pulp of the ore is treated with a c onditioning reagent which improves the selectivity of anionic
collectors to spodumene and other lithium values. … The conditioning reagent is added to and
thoroughly mixed with the ore pulp before the pulp is subjected to conventional froth flotation in
the presence of an anionic collector as the flotation agent (…)” (Extracts of the historical patent)
Although there are important differences in our approach, mainly by initially reducing the
amount of material to be froth floated by 55% by adding a prior concentration step using a
method of air classification and the fact that we are using this similar approach to treat clays and
fines, it is important to point out that the concentration is not our innovation core claim.
The Provisional Patent Innovation Claim
The keys to the invention are using water saturated with silicate salts or other similar
substitutes with reagents that make the lithium be attracted to air for successful flotation.
Clay materials that are superfine generally do not concentrate wel l in water. The
combination of nitric acid leach with a controlled dosage of citric acid with saturated salt
solution for froth flotation has not been done together previously.
St-Georges has been working on low-grade ores in super fines form. These resources are often as
difficult to leach as traditional hard rock resources. In the development, the R&D is being carried
on two fronts: concentrating with improvements on prior art and leaching with our research team
to avoid high-temperature and high-pressure vessels and eliminating the need to roast or calcine
the material in order to reduce costs.
The provisional patent filed cover prior art to concentrate low -grade lithium resources with St -
Georges technology to leach without pressure or high -temperature and avoid leaching materials
that traditionally leach easily with H2SO4 and HCl that enter the circuit as impurities. This
selective leaching process allows the reduction of waste materials and neutralization efforts.
Our team has been testing our selective leaching on a number of traditional hard rock crystalline
forms of lithium and has successfully leached spodumene and leop odolite without the use of
high-temperature and pressure and not requiring roasting and calcining.
The company already reported results of successful selective leaching that has helped to reduce
the total weight leached to approximately 12% of t he total initial weight. In the second stage of
the process, prior art to concentrate lithium in slims and clays is being applied with the
selective leaching. St-Georges expects to combine prior art with the innovation in leaching
currently being further i mproved to unlock the lithium content of various conventional and
alternative lithium-bearing material.
More material from various origins will be tested in the coming months. So far the selective
leach is working on all lithium resources tested.
Timely release of information
St-Georges management has the difficult task to protect the knowledge acquired by its on -going
R&D initiatives prior to the grant of formal patents while it also has the obligation to inform its
shareholders on the progress of th ese initiatives while protecting their collective investment in
the intellectual property to be generated.
The nature of provisional patent fil ing allows for amendments as further testing and fine tuning
is done and generates positive results while keeping the information protected from third parties.
St-Georges’ metallurgists are planning to f urther amend the provisional fi lings when significant
improvement on the core innovation becomes material. The challenge to maintain the right
balance between a maximum disclosure of information and the protection of the intellectual
property generated is bound to create a situation where an internal censorship process get in the
way of efficient information.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
“Enrico Di Cesare”
ENRICO DI CESARE, DIRECTOR & VP RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility
for the adequacy or the accuracy of the contents of this release.