New Tech Cheaply Produces Lithium and H2, While Desalinating Seawater
9th June 2021
But as with other metals like uranium, land-based lithium reserves pale in comparison to what’s out there in the sea. According to researchers at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), there’s about 5,000 times as much lithium in the oceans as there is in land deposits, and a newly developed technology could start extracting it cheaply enough to make the big time – while producing hydrogen gas, chlorine gas and desalinated water as a bonus.
The process relies on an electrochemical cell containing a ceramic membrane made from lithium lanthanum titanium oxide (LLTO), with pores just wide enough to let lithium ions through while blocking larger metal ions. “LLTO membranes have never been used to extract and concentrate lithium ions before,” says post-doctorate researcher Zhen Li, who developed the cell.