The extraction of lithium is vital for the future of the electric vehicle uses, with lithium-ion batteries vital for a future without petrol and diesel. But getting enough of the material is not easy.
Even when the stuff has been mined, it needs refining, with the contract processing involved finally producing material suitable to be sent to factories and turned into batteries.
Various technologies are being developed to try to make this easier and one of them is about to be tested in the Lazio region of Italy.
Watercycle Technologies is testing out a new method of extracting lithium from geothermal brine. The test will involve using a filtration process that is also being tried out in conjunction with Cornish Lithium down in Cornwall. The system will selectively extract lithium from brine lying just below the surface.
The test boreholes will help establish the composition of the brines, with membranes fabricated according to the chemistry. It will also process the solution to provide lithium salts, a feature of the extraction method that differs from others.
Watercycle is working with Energia, a subsidiary of Australian firm Altamin, which holds exploration licences in the central Italian region.
Noting that the characteristics of every brine varies, CEO of Watercycle Dr Seb Leaper said: “It is part of our development model to test multiple brines to further prove the efficacy of our technology and provide leading-edge, sustainable solutions for lithium and critical mineral extraction from them.”
The importance of effective techniques for extracting lithium from brines may be made all the more important in Europe because there remains opposition to mining the material from solid rock.
As Euronews reports, opposition to new lithium mines makes them very hard to establish and there are environmental concerns over the methods used for most extraction, such as water usage and the high salinity of leftover deposits.
It gives the example of high levels of public hostility to the San José de Valdeflórez lithium mine near Extremadura in Spain, which has faced significant local protests despite the introduction of a series of measures to mitigate its environmental impact, including the facility being located entirely underground.