MAX Power Secures Permits for the Next Exploration Phase

MAX Power Mining Corp. shared the following corporate update:

Willcox Lithium Project

• The first-ever diamond drilling at the Willcox Playa in southeast Arizona is scheduled to begin assaying soon. MAX Power has finished a Phase 1, 5-hole program covering 6,062 feet (1,848 m) on state land.
• The results of wide-spacing drilling included fluid sequences of non-potable liquids and lithium-rich clays in a hectorite-saponite mix.
• The Bureau of Land Management has just granted drilling permits for the next immediate exploration priority, a sizable region of extremely low resistivity in the southern end of a 10 km corridor on MAX's property.
• The 50 square mile Willcox Playa, located right off Interstate 10 in southeast Arizona and connects to Tucson and Phoenix, is thought by the Company to be extremely prospective for a sizable near-surface lithium claystone deposit. This is based on all available information, including an initial assessment of favorable mineralogy.  

The first five diamond drill holes at Willcox have supported initial theories regarding prospectivity of intense resistivity and gravimetric low anomalies at the Playa. The southern block on BLM ground features the largest and most extreme anomalies on MAX Power’s property. This bodes very well for extending the discovery of clay-rich sediments with high lithium values. We’re very pleased to receive these drill permits.

Peter Lauder, Senior Geologist and Exploration Manager, MAX Power Mining Corp.

New Direct Lithium Extraction Innovation

MAX Power announced that, at the recent American Physics Association (APA) conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Dr. Dimitrius Khaladj presented important breakthroughs regarding brine pre-treatment and lithium concentration. Dr. Khaladj works as a scientist at Berkeley Lab, a division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

This US Department of Energy laboratory is in California and is run by the University of California. Under a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA), the Berkeley Lab, which is home to eminent American research scientists Dr. Brett Helms and Dr. Michael Whittaker, is collaborating with MAX Power to create cutting-edge direct lithium extraction (DLE) methods for brine deposits.

Dr. Khaladj introduced a novel idea for direct lithium extraction that relies on the transport of lithium through colloidal graphene oxide percolating networks created by alternating current electric fields, which occur far from equilibrium.

The technology associated with this innovative idea has the potential to greatly enhance lithium miners' capacity to actively and selectively transport lithium in brine without the need for substantial pre-treatment.