Firms start up direct lithium extraction plants in the Americas

Two companies are commissioning some of the first commercial-scale plants in the western hemisphere to chemically extract lithium from brine, a process called direct lithium extraction (DLE). If they are able to ramp up production in the coming months, they will help validate a technology that other firms have struggled with.

A joint venture between Eramet and Tsingshan Holding Group has started commissioning a DLE plant 4,000 m above sea level in Argentina’s Salta Province. The partners aim to start producing lithium carbonate by the end of the year and hope to ramp up to 24,000 metric tons per year by the middle of 2025. They expect the first phase of the project to cost about $870 million.

In Utah, US Magnesium, employing DLE technology developed by International Battery Metals, has started producing lithium carbonate using briny wastewater generated by the company’s magnesium production. US Magnesium started producing magnesium in the 1970s but didn’t properly dispose of the wastewater. In 2009, the project was added to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s list of Superfund hazardous waste sites.

Waste from magnesium production is a unique source of lithium, but John Burba, the founder of International Battery Metals, says his company’s technology should work on other brines. And he hopes to expand beyond Utah. “In the most typical brines … it always picks up the lithium,” he says of the technology.

DLE has been deployed previously, but usually with preprocessing steps to increase lithium concentration and remove impurities. Cameron Perks, a lithium analyst with the research firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, says several firms in China are using DLE after steps that remove sodium and potassium. The only firm using a commercial-scale DLE process outside of China is Arcadium Lithium, which for decades has used an evaporation pond to concentrate brine before DLE at its site in Argentina.

Eramet, International Battery Metals, and a number of start-ups are hoping to improve on the process. Perks says firms developing the next generation of DLE aim to make the process cheaper and reduce the consumption of freshwater. But Perks is holding off judgment on these projects until they reach full capacity, as problems often emerge during the commissioning process. “There’s going to be some issues to work through,” he says.