"Mudpots bubble and steam near the Salton Buttes lava domes, a volcanic area at the southeastern end of the Salton Sea, California." Image credit: Deborah Bergfeld, USGS.
Now, researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have optimized a new method for extracting lithium from more dilute — and widespread — sources of the mineral, including seawater, groundwater, and “flowback water” left behind from fracking and offshore oil drilling.. “Our method allows the efficient extraction of the mineral from very dilute liquids, which can greatly broaden the potential sources of lithium.
“These methods aren’t particularly environmentally friendly to begin with, and if you start trying to work with less concentrated sources of lithium, they’re going to become even less efficient,” said Liu. “If you have a brine that is 10 times more dilute, you need 10 times more briny water to get the same amount of lithium.”
“When you produce iron phosphate, you can get particles that are drastically different sizes and shapes,” explains Yan. “In order to figure out the best synthesis method, we need to know which of those particles are most efficient at selecting lithium over sodium.”Not too big, not too small “It turned out that there was this sweet spot in the middle where both the kinetics and the thermodynamics favor lithium over sodium,” said Liu.