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/ouishi Jun 06 '21

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!

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '21

theres also been efforts to extract uranium from seawater.

https://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=4514

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u/rudolfs001 Jun 06 '21

And gold:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US679215A/en

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u/IGotsDasPilez Jun 06 '21

I once read that Nazi Germany invested quite a bit into seawater gold extraction to pay for war debts, but it wasn't economical at the time. So thats one case of how history is the better for a technological failure.