On 15 Sep 2021 at 4:40, Peri Hartman via EV wrote: > How does that work ? Do they pump the water through some > sort of catalyst that can extract lithium ?
If I understand correctly, it's David Snydacker's "direct lithium extraction" process (Lilac). It uses ion exchange, fundamentally the same process used in water softeners for decades. The big deal about siting it at the Salton Sea is that there they can use geothermal energy for the process. My main concern would be the handling and disposal of the chemicals that the process requires, but I'm far from an expert on these matters. finfeed.com/features/explainer-overview-direct-lithium-extraction-dle- geothermal-brines/ or v.gd/SlJrjF Excerpt: Both heat and electricity are used in lithium extraction and refining. The lithium chemical production process begins with contacting the geothermal brine with a selective medium which adsorbs lithium chloride (LiCl) from the brine and leaves all the other salts in solution. The lithium chloride is then eluted into pure water or acid at a higher concentration compared to the geothermal brine and with very low quantities of impurities. There are a number of technology companies which market the ability to perform DLE with high lithium recovery including Lilac Solutions, Tenova Advanced Technologies, Adionics, EnergySource Minerals, and others, some of which will work well for geothermal-lithium projects. The pure lithium chloride stream produced by the DLE process needs to be purified and concentrated to produce lithium chemical products like lithium hydroxide. For the purification process, a number of inputs are needed including chemical reagents like soda ash (Na2CO3), caustic soda (NaOH), and sulfuric acid (H2SO4). Electricity is also required to run pumps and filtration systems. For the concentration process, a significant quantity of electricity and heat is required to remove water from the lithium chloride stream for recycling and to crystallise battery quality lithium hydroxide. The geothermal plant can handily produce all of the power required, and heat is harnessed from the geothermal brine to drive the process. All the electricity and heat used in the process is produced on site and has no carbon footprint. No natural gas pipeline is needed, and no diesel or coal needs to be burned to run the process, giving geothermal-lithium projects a low carbon and potentially a cost advantage over both salar-type brine and hard rock resources which require burning of fossil fuels in lithium chemical production. David Roden, EVDL moderator & general lackey To reach me, don't reply to this message; I won't get it. Use my offlist address here : http://evdl.org/help/index.html#supt = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands. -- H L Mencken = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ Address messages to [email protected] No other addresses in TO and CC fields UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/ LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
