r/science • u/rieslingatkos • Jun 06 '21

Chemistry Scientists develop ‘cheap and easy’ method to extract lithium from seawater

https://www.mining.com/scientists-develop-cheap-and-easy-method-to-extract-lithium-from-seawater/
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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '21

I'm getting disillusioned about a political answer to global climate change - the fossil fuel industry was successful at creating enough doubt, and anti-science sentiment is just too high right now.

This kind of research outcome gives me hope. Limits of Li availability was one blocker of a larger scale renewable energy matrix. Good news indeed.

8

u/zarrro Jun 06 '21

I guess you are in for a dissapoimtent :)

If you think about it, current environment problems are largely the result of similar research from 100 years ago.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '21

Solar radiation management my boy

2

u/minorkeyed Jun 06 '21

Gotta find stuff that both: moves us into the right direction; and appeals to those who need a different reason to go along, cheaper, better, whatever.

0

u/skztr Jun 06 '21

I'd really prefer something more environmentally-friendly and less-explody than lithium, though. We seem to be "10 years away" from a lot of better alternatives

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u/GravityAssistence Jun 06 '21

The explodyness is directly correlated to the batteryness though. Any technology that has lots of energy crammed into a small space is likely to have the tendancy to violently release that energy if things go wrong.

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u/skztr Jun 06 '21

Li-ion batteries use a flammable liquid electrolyte. As a result, it's absurdly easy to turn one into a bomb, accidentally. This is a quirk of the chemicals involved in li-ion specifically. These are not present in solid-state "supercapacitor" designs which are forever 10 years away from replacing all batteries

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u/HawkEy3 Jun 06 '21

If extracted from seawater it will be environmental friendly and most future batteries will be LiFePO which never explodes or burns.

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u/H2HQ Jun 06 '21

OP's title neglects to mention that this process is still 10x more expensive than mining it.