Arcadium Lithium, the company formed by the merger of Livent and Allkem at the start of the year, has acquired the lithium metal business of Li-Metal for $11 million. This includes a pilot production facility in Ontario. Li-Metal founder and CTO Maciej Jastrzebski has entered into a consulting agreement to facilitate the transfer of technology and integrate the team.

SK On, which makes batteries for electric vehicles, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Global Lithium Resources, which mines lithium from spodumene mineral at two sites in Western Australia. The two will “explore future business opportunities together in regard to stable supply of lithium”. Precise terms were not disclosed.

Albemarle has officially inaugurated La Negra III/IV, its third chemical conversion plant, 27 km from the city of Antofagasta in Chile. The firm claims that this is the most modern plant of its kind in Latin America and that it will help to double lithium production and reduce freshwater consumption by up to 30% per tonne of production.

Albemarle has signed a joint development agreement with 6K, a specialist in microwave-controlled plasma technology, to explore the use of 6K’s UniMelt materials production platform to develop novel lithium battery materials. It has also made an undisclosed investment in 6K through Volta Energy Technologies, a venture capital firm active in the energy storage sector that is already an investor.

Chlor-alkali producer Nobian, which was separated from the rest of Nouryon last year, has signed an agreement with German-Australian lithium developer Vulcan Energy to assess the feasibility of producing lithium hydroxide from lithium chloride in Germany. 

Nobian has an electrolysis and crystallisation demo-plant at its site in Frankfurt, near to Vulcan’s own geothermal-lithium reservoir sites in the Upper Rhine Valley area, where it plans to build several geothermal plants and a central lithium-hydroxide plant. 

Shortly after acquiring a lithium converter in Guangxi province, Albemarle has signed investment agreements that will enable it go build two lithium hydroxide plants in China. Each will have 50,000 tonnes/year of capacity and construction is to be completed by the end of 2024.

They are located at the Yangtze River International Chemical Industrial Park within the Zhangjiagang Free Trade Zone in Jiangsu province and the Pengshan Economic Development Park in the Pengshan district in Sichuan province.