As the electric vehicle market booms, the demand for lithium has also soared, with global lithium production more than tripling in the last decade. Current methods of extracting lithium from rock ores or brines are slow and come with high energy demands and environmental costs. They also require sources of lithium which are incredibly concentrated to begin with and are only found in a few countries.
Researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have optimized a new method for extracting lithium from more dilute (and widespread) sources of lithium, including seawater, groundwater, and “flowback water” left behind from fracking and offshore oil drilling.
Source: CleanTechnica: Read The Article
PSR Analysis: The key to this process is how well it can be commercialized -if they can succeed in that, then the lithium crisis can be solved (as lower lithium concentrates are much more widely found), but that’s a big “if” at the moment, so we will have to wait and see. PSR
Guy Youngs is Forecast & Adoption Lead at Power Systems Research
