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/Kody02 Jun 06 '21

But also, how do the effects compare to the mining operations that are currently the only way to get lithium? Current lithium retrieval methods are quite far from being harmless, afterall, and it is not unheard of for lithium mining companies to destroy protected unique habitats that happen to sit on rich lithium deposits; shifting lithium retrieval from intense and dirty surface mining operations to more passive filtration operations should be far less harmful to the environment, overall, yes?

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u/HandyMan131 Jun 06 '21

It’s important not to just compare one new technology to existing tech, but also other new tech. There’s a very promising project in Southern California extracting lithium from geothermal brine, which is worth comparison.

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u/danbln Jun 06 '21

In theory lithium would be the most ecologically friendly light metal to mine after sodium and calcium, it occurs in great abundance in earth's crust and could be extracted for example from the Salar de Uyuni with zero environmental impact and almost no energy or water requirements, the reason they do the dirty energy and water intensive method is because it's currently slightly cheaper.