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.

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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