:: Nemaska Lithium Receives Canadian Patent for its Lithium Hydroxide and Lithium Carbonate Process

Nemaska Lithium Inc. is pleased to announce that it has obtained issuance of Canadian Patent No. 2,874,917 that describes its proprietary process of preparing lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate from spodumene sources using membrane electrolysis. Nemaska has also received a notice of allowance for the corresponding patent application (No. 14/404,466) in the United States.

The electrolysis technology developed by Nemaska Lithium to convert lithium sulphate into lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate, has been successfully lab scale tested, demonstrated in pilot plant testing as well as at supplier facilities over the past four years. In the past, electrolysis based technologies have been commercially used in multiple industries and have demonstrated that they can be very efficient and very reliable.

"Our patent portfolio encompasses a number of unique processes that we have developed throughout the technology chain," commented Jean-Francois Magnan, Technical Manager at Nemaska Lithium. "In addition to developing the overall process, we have done a lot of work on the impurity removal systems which allow us to produce one the purest lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate products without the costly polishing steps that our competitors require. This ensures that we will produce lithium compound products at low costs and at very high purity. I believe these two critical factors will enable to capture a significant share of the growing lithium compounds market."

Nemaska Lithium has developed proprietary environmentally friendly processes to produce a very high purity, low cost lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate using membrane electrolysis technologies. The main benefits of these processes include:

• low and predictable operating costs, C$2,693/t (*US$2,154/t) for lithium hydroxide monohydrate and C$3,441/t (*US$2,753/t) for lithium carbonate FOB Shawinigan per the feasibility study filed in May 2016
• virtually eliminates costly reagents such as soda ash thus eliminating sodium sulfate by-product which has no market value and is environmentally harmful
• significant reduction of green-house gas emissions (GHG)

These processes will enable Nemaska Lithium to have excellent control on cost and quality of its final lithium products, for the benefit of its customers.