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Developing Extraction Methods
As demand for lithium increases, alternative methods for extraction are gaining popularity. Methods that are gaining traction are both geothermal brine water extraction and seawater lithium extraction.

Geothermal Lithium

From a sample of over 2000 geothermal wells in the US, approximately 1200 reported lithium concentrations. This indicates how important geothermal fluids may be as sources of brine lithium.

Geothermal plants produce energy by pumping high-temperature groundwater up to the surface where the steam drives a turbine. The brine water from this process is then recycled back down into the ground to be reheated and reprocessed. A developing method for lithium extraction, as well as other valuable minerals, is to process geothermal brine water through an electrolytic cell, located within a membrane, to recover valuable minerals. This environmentally sustainable process yields high concentrations of lithium that are also located in convenient locations for transport to processing plants. This can result in a highly profitable and economical process for the extraction of lithium.

Seawater Lithium

Ocean seawater offers a vast amount of lithium. However, it is not currently economically viable to extract. A developing method is using organic ion-selective cells within a membrane that is able to collect lithium either by use of electric field or a concentration difference. The challenge for this method, like desalinization, is producing enough lithium at a high enough rate to prove it economical. Another issue with this method is that the lithium is still dissolved within water and must undergo further treatment to extract metallic or solid lithium.

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