The AVZ Minerals Ltd (ASX: AVZ) share price is charging higher on Wednesday after the release of an update.
In early trade the lithium-focused mineral exploration company's shares are up 7.5% to 22 cents.
This latest gains means the AVZ Minerals share price is now up 175% over the last two months from 8 cents.
What did AVZ Minerals announce?
This morning AVZ Minerals revealed that it has successfully completed the preliminary metallurgical testing for its planned lithium sulphate plant and production of 1.5 kg of primary lithium sulphate material.
The company advised that it engaged Kingston Process Metallurgy (KPM) in Canada to test, at bench scale, each of the processes in its proposed Manono Lithium Sulphate plant flowsheet.
The test work objective was to produce primary lithium sulphate from Manono spodumene concentrate (SC6) and to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the flowsheet.
According to the release, the test work was undertaken from September to December 2020 at KPM's Kingston, Ontario, facility. Approximately 9kg of spodumene concentrate (SC6) from the Manono deposit assaying approximately 6.1% (Li2O) was processed.
After which, conversion of the alpha-spodumene to beta-spodumene was successfully completed, with the test results indicating a primary lithium sulphate product containing greater than 80 wt. % lithium sulphate monohydrate can be readily produced.
Management notes that this would make a highly suitable feedstock for the electrolytic production of lithium hydroxide monohydrate and ultimately lithium batteries.
AVZ's Managing Director, Mr Nigel Ferguson, said: "It is pleasing to have independent confirmation of our proposed lithium sulphate plant process as well as verification that our product is suitable for feedstock for battery plants."
"KPM's test work provides further confirmation that our high-quality Manono product is capable of producing clean Primary Lithium Sulphate that is suitable for use in the production of batteries," he concluded.
