UK-based exploration and development firm Cornish Lithium has raised another £6-million in crowdfunding to progress its geothermal and hard rock projects in Cornwall.
The company on Monday opened the opportunity to pre-registered investors and reached its target within 20 minutes.
“The additional funding will be used to continue the progress towards our goal of creating a battery metals hub for the UK. We have made significant advances since our last fundraising on Crowdcube, on both our geothermal and hard rock workstreams. We have also continued to attract government support with additional funding grants being made as well as receiving our offshore exploration licences from the Crown Estate,” commented CEO and founder Jeremy Wrathall.
He added that the acquisition of the Lepidico licence at the end of 2020 had allowed Cornish Lithium to unlock the significant potential of its Trelavour project.
Cornish Lithium announced in December that it had successfully produced nominal battery grade lithium hydroxide using Lepidico’s proprietary technologies on lithium mica samples obtained during its initial hard rock lithium drilling programme. Following these test results, Cornish Lithium acquired an exclusive licence to use Lepidico’s processing technology covering the St Austell region.
The company has subsequently completed its second drilling campaign at the Trelavour project and work is now under way to define a Joint Ore Reserve Committee resource for the project, which will ultimately define the scale of the project. In addition, test work is being conducted to optimise the extraction of lithium from mica minerals in the granite.
At United Downs, Cornish Lithium has also made progress.
The company recently announced the completion of the construction of the geothermal water test site at United Downs. The site is a test facility designed to trial a number of DLE technologies on both deep and shallow geothermal waters. The test work is designed to establish which of these highly selective technologies is most suited to the low-carbon extraction of lithium from Cornish geothermal waters.
Having received funding from the UK government’s Getting Building Fund, the company is moving ahead, with its partner Geothermal Engineering, to construct a £4-million lithium extraction pilot plant in Cornwall.