Li+WATER, Membrane electrolysis for resource-efficient lithium and water recovery from brines

Important results from the project

The project´s objective was to develop a new process based on membrane electrolysis to extract battery-grade lithium from salt lake brine in northern Argentina. The method could also handle less concentrated brine from Europe. The process was expected to have less environmental impact, including water consumption and possibility to to recover other metals and energy. The intention was that the new process could be assessed in relation to the existing method based on technical performance, environmental impact and industrialization.

Expected long term effects

The new process has proven to be able to give the expected results, but a lot of optimization work is needed to get the desired yield and profitability. In particular, there were problems with lithium loss, and other pathways needed to be investigated. Work is continuing with industrial partners in Argentina to develop a pilot plant. LCA could only be performed on the existing process, which is used for future project. It shows that the production of sodium carbonate for the process, electricity and water were the most significant for the impact on the climate and other impact categories.

Approach and implementation

The project is funded through the EU program ERAMIN 2 and is based on previous reults at laboratory scale at the University of Ghent, which has been a partner in the project. It aimed to scale up the processes to a pilot and demonstrator of the membrane electrolysis process by the University of Jujuy in Argentina on natural brines from salt lakes. The results would be evaluated with respect to environmental performance and industrialization potential by IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet. However, due to problems with the upscaling, the project plan had to be revised.