Rio Tinto Begins Production Of Battery-grade Lithium From Project At Boron

(RTTNews) - Rio Tinto (RTPPF.PK, RIO.L, RIO, RTNTF.PK) said it has started production of battery-grade lithium from waste rock at a lithium demonstration plant at the Boron mine site in California, United States. The demonstration plant has a design capacity of 10 tonnes per year of battery grade lithium.

Rio Tinto Minerals chief executive Sinead Kaufman said "This is a valuable next step in scaling up our production of lithium at the Boron site, all from using waste material without the need for further mining."

Rio Tinto noted that its lithium pipeline includes the Jadar lithium-borate project in Serbia, for which a feasibility study is expected to complete by the end of 2021.