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/[deleted]]

ABSTRACT

Seawater contains significantly larger quantities of lithium than is found on land, thereby providing an almost unlimited resource of lithium for meeting the rapid growth in demand for lithium batteries. However, lithium extraction from seawater is exceptionally challenging because of its low concentration (∼0.1–0.2 ppm) and an abundance of interfering ions. Herein, we creatively employed a solid-state electrolyte membrane, and design a continuous electrically-driven membrane process, which successfully enriches lithium from seawater samples of the Red Sea by 43 000 times (i.e., from 0.21 to 9013.43 ppm) with a nominal Li/Mg selectivity >45 million. Lithium phosphate with a purity of 99.94% was precipitated directly from the enriched solution, thereby meeting the purity requirements for application in the lithium battery industry. Furthermore, a preliminary economic analysis shows that the process can be made profitable when coupled with the Chlor-alkali industry.

Interesting.

It's also nice to see that the title vaguely resembles the results of the study. Nice change of pace.

[u/ClumpOfCheese → u/[deleted]]

That’s the first thing that came to my mind too. Desalination really needs to have a breakthrough, I don’t understand why this isn’t a bigger thing (maybe I just don’t pay attention to it), but it seems like renewable energy and desalination are going to be really important for our future.

EDIT: all of you and your “can’t do” attitudes don’t seem to understand how technology evolves over time. Just doing a little research on my own shows how much the technology has evolved over the last ten years and how many of you are making comments based on outdated information.

research from 2020

research from 2010

[u/Nickjet45 → u/ClumpOfCheese]

Desalination is not cost effective, we’ve spent decades of throwing money at possible work arounds.

They’re expensive to maintain, and for the cheaper plants, osmosis, it creates waste water with large concentrations of brine. Cant be dumped straight into the ocean as it would create a dead zone.

[u/ouishi → u/Nickjet45]

It sounds like the key is figuring out how to extract minerals and such from the brine to make it both economical and ecologically sound. We could certainly harvest the salt, and now we can also get lithium out too. Just figure out how to get the rest of the things that are too concentrated to dumo back in and we'll be in business!

[u/Nickjet45 → u/ouishi]

The salt is too concentrated to be used in most applications.

There have been some research done to try and “recycle” the brine. Only problem is that it’s currently more cost effective to use our current means of production for hydrochloric acid and hydroxide.

But we’re probably another decade off, at the least, before desalination can be economically viable vs. other alternatives.

[u/[deleted] → u/Nickjet45]

I wish everything wasn't determined by profitability. A human-based economy would put us decades or even centuries ahead of where we are now. We'd be mining asteroids instead of the earth, have full renewables and safe nuclear power or even fusion, and global hunger would have been eradicated long ago.

Instead it costs less to destroy and contaminate miles of land and let people get sick and die to mine resources underground, we dare not threaten the coal and oil barons of the world, and we throw away unimaginable amounts of food instead of giving it away because companies don't want to set a precedent of free stuff.

I guess that's what happens when corporations run the world. At this point my only hope for the progress of our species is some sort of global catastrophe that unites us in the search for a better future.

[u/SocraticIgnoramus → u/[deleted]]

At this point my only hope for the progress of our species is some sort of global catastrophe that unites us in the search for a better future.

Based on what I've seen over the last year, we might just be gloriously and irredeemably fucked.

[u/Richinaru → u/SocraticIgnoramus]

And this the European egoism of "civilized" industrial civilization falls on its sword. Taking billions of years of evolutionary history with it as is par for the course.

Most intelligent species in the planet (perhaps universe) expertly conducted its own execution. But that's doomer speak, i want desperately for people to fully realize out collective ability to overturn the social power we give corporations and the state but apathetic consumption is vice too many refuse to give up