The British mining company Cornish Lithium has secured £1 million (Dh4.7m) to explore for lithium in Cornwall, southwest England, its chief executive said, taking the country a step closer to a domestic source of the strategic mineral.
Lithium plays an essential role in electric car batteries, and is produced by evaporation in Latin America, which has been considered the cheapest source. But new technology to extract lithium from brine, or salt water like the sea, is helping to make other options more viable.
In January, Cornish Lithium said it had reached a mineral rights agreement with Canada's Strongbow Exploration.
It then said it needed around £5m to develop its project to extract lithium from underground hot springs and to supply products to the rapidly growing battery market for electric cars and for power storage.
Jeremy Wrathall, the chief executive of Cornish Lithium, said he now expected the project would be cheaper and the £1m announced on Monday would be enough for at least a year.
The money will be used to decide where to put the first drill holes. Production is at least five years away, Mr Wrathall said, adding the investors brought mineral expertise, as well as funds.
