Membrane tech to enhance lithium production for batteries

Monash University startup ElectraLith is building an extraction system to filter lithium from brine using a polymer-ceramic composite membrane, enabling the mineral to be extracted from salt lakes, mine tailings and other brine solutions using small amounts of solar-generated electricity, without added chemicals or water. Harnessing the power of electro-filtration membrane technology, ElectraLith aims to drive the battery market to a cleaner, cheaper and faster future using lithium extraction.

At the forefront of this technology is Professor Huanting Wang, an Australian Laureate Fellow and Director of the ARC Research Hub for Energy-efficient Separation at Monash University’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Prof Wang said that current lithium extraction methods involve roasting hard rock at high temperature and dissolving it with hot sulfuric acid, or evaporating brines in a solar pond, both of which use chemicals to precipitate lithium out. The process can be time-consuming, expensive and wasteful. “My research in nanostructure membranes is all about efficiency and ingenuity to make the most of this limited mineral resource,” Wang said.

Recognising the potential of this innovation, Monash Engineering’s Dr Zhouyou (Emily) Wang has received an Australian Research Council (ARC) Early Career Industry Fellowship to develop and commercialise the novel membrane-based technology needed to transform the lithium mining and recycling business. “Even though seawater is a brine, the concentration of lithium is too low for cost-effective extraction, but we are already thinking about designing the next generation of membranes to improve lithium extraction, so maybe in the future we can extract lithium from new sources,” Dr Wang said.

Lithium is a critical mineral and demand is rising due to its global use in batteries for electrical vehicles and renewable energy storage. To meet this demand, lithium supply is projected to increase up to 800% or approximately one million tonnes per annum by 2050. ElectraLith’s Chief Technology Officer, Dr SJ Oosthuizen, said that the start-up’s team of materials scientists and electrochemists are honoured to demonstrate how scientific innovation can improve how critical minerals are produced, used and recycled, all while maintaining sustainability and saving costs.

This new technology is compatible with renewable electricity and has the potential to reduce lithium production costs by up to 40%, thereby making onshore processing more competitive with the low energy requirement and environmental impact of all approaches to lithium refining.

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