Clontarf Energy plc announced a heads of agreement around the potential formation of a 50:50 Joint Venture with NEXT-ChemX Corporation("NCX") covering testing, marketing, and deploying of NCX's proprietary (patent pending) direct lithium ion extraction ("DLE") technology in Bolivia. Formation of the JV is subject to final due diligence and the parties entering into formal documentation, which is intended to occur within the next 30 days. NCX's ion extraction technology uses the surface area of hollow fibre membranes to extract lithium ions from brines.

The technology is a continuous process, and does not require high pressure, temperature or electrolysis. It does not rely on osmotic processes, or costly filtration techniques electrolysis, but instead mimics biophysical processes of natural principals to induce ions in solution to cross the membrane barrier. This mimics how mammal organisms remove wastes from a donor liquid without physically mixing with an acceptor liquid.

The technology has been proven to be effective and efficient during laboratory testing, and in the Board's view, NCX's technology is an innovative approach to direct lithium extraction. Environmental attractions include limited energy and water consumption, extracting the targeted ions and generating minimal waste. It is suited for lithium extraction from Bolivian brines, where evaporative ponds are not optimal due to rainfall conditions, altitude and magnesium content.

Laboratory /bench test analyses extracted ions from solutions at ambient temperatures and pressures - even in very low concentrations. The next step is to test selected brines from potential sources. NCX is assembling, subject to funding being delivered from Clontarf (per the below), a pilot plant in Texas to test large volumes of brines, moving towards feasibility and commercialisation.

The plant will test circa 1,000 litres of each specific brine, with an overall 20,000 litre trial run size, allowing a customised NCX DLE commercial system to be assembled (in modular form) and placed on site for field testing. The NCX DLE Technology is patent pending, with intellectual property protection managed by Patent Attorneys specialised in chemical processing and materials science.