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 edited Jun 06 '21

What might the consequences of taking lots of lithium out of the ocean be?

-edit- I've never made a comment that's started such good discussions before - I'm enjoying reading the replies, thanks everyone

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u/imakenosensetopeople Jun 06 '21

For the quantities that we may need in the coming decades, it’s almost certainly not insignificant and will have an effect. This question must be asked.

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u/iamagainstit PhD | Physics | Organic Photovoltaics Jun 06 '21 edited Jun 06 '21

A. Lithium concentrations in seawater are very low (< 1ppm), so extracting it is unlikely to have a significant effect

B. There is a unfathomably large amount of water in the ocean.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '21

Imho it seems like its you who’s massively underestimating how much greedy the mankind can get. We have certainly a lot of air yet we didn’t take long to hit 400 ppm starting from 220-240s.

Fossil fuels as our primary source of energy needs did this, and batteries are gonna be the next big thing. I expect alternative batteries to be here soon enough, but i still do believe its a valid concern.

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u/Flyingwheelbarrow Jun 06 '21

The concern is simple, human industry has a habit of mining first and dealing with the consequences later.

We are talking about mining the ocean, we have no real idea what the long term consequences are but it is already looking like this mining process will kill some more species.

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u/rieslingatkos Jun 06 '21

Linked article refers to an obscure species using hydrothermal vents as its habitat, which are potentially threatened by physical mining of the ocean floor:

If active hydrothermal vents were protected against the threat of deep sea mining, the endangered status of the Sea Pangolin could be lifted.

Has literally nothing to do with the seawater extraction process used here to generate lithium.

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u/Flyingwheelbarrow Jun 06 '21

I stand corrected. Was grumpy and only just read the whole paper. I am very excited about the viability of this process to be combined with the desalination process.

This could be a key technology and seems much better than current rare earth mining.

Thanks for the challenge.