“It comes out at over 100 levels Celsius,” Will Stringfellow, lead writer of the paper, mentioned in a media assertion. “So, you must cope with the warmth. And it’s very, very saline – about 25% by weight.”
Stringfellow identified that there are a lot of supplies within the combine that would doubtlessly intervene with the extraction.
“There may be plenty of salt, which means plenty of sodium, plenty of chloride. There’s additionally plenty of calcium and magnesium, and different issues like iron and silicon,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, based mostly on the evaluate he performed with co-author Patrick Dobson, a number of concepts appeared possible.
Of their view, probably the most technologically superior methodology of lithium extraction is adsorption utilizing inorganic sorbents, however different promising applied sciences are additionally being developed and might be used within the area, certainly one of them being inorganic molecular sieve ion-exchange sorbents, that are being utilized for extraction of lithium from brines.
The evaluate regarded on the revealed literature and industrial and authorities experiences, in addition to lithium extraction expertise patents.
“We have been commissioned by DOE’s Geothermal Applied sciences Workplace to conduct an unbiased evaluation of mineral extraction expertise within the context of geothermal energy production,” Stringfellow mentioned. “There have been earlier opinions of particular person elementary processes, however that is, to our information, the primary complete evaluate that regarded on the extra applied-science facet of the method.”
Based on the researcher, who’s an knowledgeable on industrial waste remedy and administration, the Division of Vitality is excited by each geothermal vitality and the lithium provide chain.
Apart from conducting this evaluate, he and his colleagues at Berkeley’s Lithium Useful resource Analysis and Innovation Heart have been engaged on tasks specializing in methods to decide the chemical composition of scorching brine in real-time, without having to chill it down, enabling higher course of management to maximise the effectivity of lithium extraction.
They’re additionally engaged on a techno-economic evaluation with two firms working on the Salton Sea – Berkshire Hathaway Vitality and Managed Thermal Assets – to see if lithium extraction applied sciences might be performed in a method that makes it cost-competitive with different types of lithium manufacturing.
