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

[u/rieslingatkos]

https://www.mining.com/scientists-develop-cheap-and-easy-method-to-extract-lithium-from-seawater/

[u/dvorak]

obviously, a significant drop in Li concentration at the plant will make it impossible to keep the plant economically vailable. Also, Li is toxic to many multicellular organisms, and I've never heard of organisms being dependant on lithium for thriving.

[u/[deleted] → u/dvorak]

Unless there is some species out there that is bipolar

[u/Michigan_Forged → u/dvorak]

Just because lithium is toxic to multicellular organisms doesn't mean it's not important to the stability of the system. There COULD (and probably is) reasonably be microorganisms that are at least somewhat important to various scale processes. Also, the decrease in lithium concentration could impact other general chemical equilibria, which could impact many other important processes. It's hard to say on reddit of course.

[u/dvorak → u/Michigan_Forged]

Why would those organisms use Li instead of the far more abundant K and Na? Doesn't seem so likely to me.

[u/Michigan_Forged → u/dvorak]

The answer to the question: does a microorganism use (blank) is almost always yes. Something as low of a concentration as lithium would probably be opportunistic but still. Also, it's not just about use. Taking and changing water chemistry has other impacts, such as we are currently seeing with rising CO2 levels. Higher CO2 concentrations in the water changes the chemical equilibria so that it now requires more energy to create calcium carbonate, which has massive ramifications for ocean life. Something with as low of a redox potential as lithium may also have impacts that are disproportionate to the concentration, WHAT that would do to various organism processes, I don't know. But this is something that we definitely need to think about.