Haley Zaremba

Haley Zaremba is a writer and journalist based in Mexico City. She has extensive experience writing and editing environmental features, travel pieces, local news in the…

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• Researchers developed a vermiculite membrane to efficiently extract lithium from seawater.
• This technology could reduce environmental damage and geopolitical risks tied to traditional lithium mining.
• It may also help diversify global supply chains and unlock new sources of critical minerals.

The world is going to need a whole lot of lithium to power a more sustainable future. The critical mineral is an essential ingredient in a wide range of clean energy technologies and is particularly essential in batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage–two rapidly expanding global sectors. But there are a lot of problems associated with extracting and sourcing lithium, from environmental degradation and public health hazards to market uncertainty and heightened geopolitical vulnerabilities. However, a brand new technological breakthrough might have provided a way to get around nearly all of those pitfalls.

A team of researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago has found a way of “mining without a mine” by extracting lithium from one of the planet’s most infinitely renewable resources: seawater. The method uses a membrane made of vermiculite, an abundant, cost-effective, and naturally occurring form of clay. This membrane “filters lithium ions with remarkable efficiency, offering a potential domestic alternative to traditional mining,” according to Interesting Engineering.

While extracting lithium from brine is not a new idea, current technologies are inefficient and extremely water-intensive. Because of this, the sector has a high exposure to risks associated with climate change, as 50% of mines are located in very high and arid areas like South America’s Atacama Desert. But reports indicate that this new vermiculite membrane method is more refined. “Filtering by both ion size and charge, our membrane can pull lithium out of water with much greater efficiency,” said the study’s first author Yining Liu, a Ph.D. candidate at UChicago.

Avoiding traditional mining techniques solves a myriad of problems facing traditional lithium extraction. Any form of mining is associated with a heavy environmental cost, and lithium mining is no exception. Usually, richer countries outsource those environmental risks to poorer nations with rich lithium deposits. But with this new technology, any country with a coast can source lithium in a cost-effective and relatively environmentally friendly manner.

Demand for lithium has skyrocketed over the past few years, largely driven by the clean technology sector. Global lithium demand rose 63% between 2021 and 2023, from 101,000 tons to 165,000 tons, and is on track to increase another 222% to reach 531,000 tons by 2030. However, despite this runaway growth rate, lithium prices have remained volatile and even experienced paradoxical slumps thanks to gross overproduction from China.

China’s chokehold over global lithium supply chains is one of the primary challenges facing the sustainability and security of the critical mineral. Chinese companies control 25% of the world’s lithium mining capacity and 60% of the world’s refining capacity for EV-battery-grade lithium. By next year, China will overtake Australia to become the single largest lithium miner in the world.

The International Energy Agency ranks lithium’s geopolitical risk as a 3 out of 5, noting that 85% of global lithium production comes from just three countries – Australia, Chile, and China. And China has signalled that it is not afraid to flex its geopolitical might to disrupt global supply chains to further its own political interests. This weak spot in global lithium supply chains has only been exacerbated by Trump-era tariffs and a growing global trend toward nationalism and protectionism.

The ability to cost-effectively and safely extract lithium from seawater would reconfigure much more equitable and resilient global lithium supply chains. “Such a membrane could reduce our dependence on foreign suppliers and open the door to new lithium reserves in places we never considered,” said researcher Liu.

Furthermore, this method could have potential for extracting other critical minerals as well, including nickel, cobalt, rare earth elements. The membrane could even be utilized to remove harmful contaminants from drinking water, potentially counteracting the lithium sector’s long history of water contamination.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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