Lithium extraction company International Battery Metals (IBAT) has revealed that its patented mobile modular direct lithium extraction technology is able to recover 98% of the water it uses, which reduces the negative environmental impact on freshwater aquifers in lithium-rich areas.
According to IBAT, it is able to recover 94% of the fresh water it uses to extract lithium from brine, and, through the use of an evaporator, it is able to pick up an additional 4%, resulting in a total of 98% water recovery. Recycling this water allows IBAT to avoid drawing huge amounts of water from critical freshwater aquifers, and the leftover brine is pumped back down into the ground, resulting in a cleaner extraction site compared to the traditional solar evaporation method.
Dr John Burba, IBAT Founder and Chairman, says that the traditional solar evaporation method of lithium extraction has had a huge negative impact on the indigenous people of the Atacama region. The region, which lies across northern Chile and northwestern Argentina, is part of the so-called Lithium Triangle.
To obtain the lithium, miners pump brine, or lithium-containing saltwater, from salars (salt flats) into a series of evaporation ponds. The non lithium salts are removed in order from separate ponds. Ultimately an impure lithium chloride solution is produced. This drains already-scarce water resources in the region, as well as damages freshwater wetlands.
“Additionally the solar evaporation process generates huge amounts of salt that are piled on the salar floor. The resulting lithium chloride from the evaporation process is very impure, production of high quality lithium carbonate requires a vast amount of clean water. The resulting waste water is lost. The solar evaporation process has depleted fresh water levels in the region to the point that many of the indigenous people that live around the Atacama salar can not access fresh water. This practice has displaced many of these people from their historical homes. They were formerly farmers and ranchers, but now they've lost their livelihoods,” Burba says.
As opposed to the traditional evaporation method, IBAT's technology has a unique mechanical process that reduces water use. IBAT's extraction technology can also be used on brine from a wide variety of locations, including geothermal and oil wells, relieving the pressure on the sites within the Lithium Triangle. It uses a proprietary absorbent that was co-invented by Burba, which effectively isolates the lithium chloride from the brine, resulting in a higher concentration of purer, battery-grade lithium.
“One reason why lithium is booming today is because electric cars are less-polluting than internal combustion vehicles. However, solar evaporation is a harmful and inefficient way of obtaining lithium, so the lithium industry is just trading one form of environmental damage for another. I've seen firsthand how polluting other lithium extraction methods are, and this inspired me to help develop a cleaner alternative. IBAT's direct lithium extraction technology has lower cost and is faster to deploy, and we've striven to make sure it's as clean as humanly possible through its lower water consumption and environmental impact,” Burba says.
Media contact:
Name: Jeanne Piga Plunkett
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