Demonstration Plant

This Demonstration Facility belongs to Agua Dulce Technologies , LLC - located in the great State of Colorado. Agua has developed a technology for processing HOT geothermal brine, mine drainage, and dilute leach solutions of copper, gold or PGMs. The technology upgrades valuable metals in diluted liquor by a factor of 10 - 12.

In the case for geothermal brine, the liquor is obtained at pressurized and high temp conditions. The superhot steam is used to drive the turbines in order to generate electricity . After expansion, the steam pressure drops, and s aturated s team exits the turbine with temperatures hovering around 100 °C.

Most metallurgical extraction systems will fail at this level of temperatures. One of our companies will provide a unique solution that allows selective beneficiation of critical minerals without cooling geothermal brine to trigger unwanted salt crystallization.

Per U.S. Government rule, brine water should be injected back into the geothermal reservoir to maintain the system in equilibrium. Geothermal sources should not be depleted in water. The U.S. is willing to issue a permit for extracting lithium from geothermal brines responsibly, which means injecting brine back into the geothermal reservoir and avoiding excess stockpiles of unwanted toxic crystals in the environment. The cost and maintenance of injection wells is not cheap , and the techniques required to prevent premature crystallization of salts are elusive.

We have designed a clever technology that extracts Lithium from very geothermal brine at extremely high temperatures. It can recover both freshwater and critical minerals but in the case of Geothermal brines, solutions and un recovered minerals should be injected back. Notwithstandi ng, the technology works well for dilute gold and PGM solution s because these mineral salts can be pre - concentrated to minimize operating capital and scale down downstream equipment.

In summary , the technology accepts a hot brine solution and extracts wat er selectively. The recovered water is in the form of steam, which can be injected into the well together with other hot solutions. Steam is part of the hot system in underground geothermal brine.

The dehydrated and concentrated solution leaves the unit while still hot. The proprietary technology extracts lithium and magnesium in two stages. In both cases, the feed solution should be 95 °C or slightly below. At this temperature, lithium and magnesium are recovered preferentially leaving all base metals in the hot brine solution, which is transferred to the injection well.