7 ms·

Adding another solution to the issue of mining lithium for batteries at scale is awesome, I hope they find a way to deal with the brine that this produces (Edit

Adding another solution to the issue of mining lithium for batteries at scale is awesome, I hope they find a way to deal with the brine that this produces (Edit: it does not really produce brine in the classical sense according to the paper [0]). Maybe this process could be a way to deal with brine from seawater desalination [1] by at least removing lithium ions from the waste water. Since the ion concentration in the waste water is higher than in seawater, it should theoretically make the lithium separation process easier, shouldn't it? Another thing: combining this with cheap solar power and seawater lithium mining might be a part of a possible solution for a post-oil industry in the Gulf States? They did the tests on Red Sea seawater which has a higher salinity than most other seawater but apparantly the eastern Mediterranean matches or even surpasses that [2]. [0] "It is also noted that the total concentration of other salts after the first stage is less than 500 ppm, which implies that after lithium harvest, the remaining water can be treated as freshwater. Hence, the process also has a potential to integrate with seawater desalination to further enhance its economic viability", from page 5, (PDF) https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2021/ee/d1ee00354b https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2021/ee/d1ee00354... [1] I am not linking to a particular article but this is what I am talking about: https://www.google.de/search?q=toxic+brine+seawater+drinking+water https://www.google.de/search?q=toxic+brine+seawater+drinking... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salinity#/media/File:WOA09_sea-surf_SAL_AYool.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salinity#/media/File:WOA09_sea...

sandworm101 5y ago
It depends. There is chemistry here too, not just physical membranes. Higher concentrations of everything else might interfere with only getting at the lithium.
scythe 5y ago
You can obtain a few things from desalination brines. Magnesium is the most plentiful, besides salt, of course. There's also some sulfur, bromine and boron that might be worth recovering. It's mostly theoretical, of course.
AYBABTME 5y ago
The concern over brine is something I'm willing to contemplate but on the face of it, it seems to me that brine would only be a problem in the immediate zone where it is returned. And then again the fresh water produced along with the brine will end up back in mostly the same surrounding after it gets used, so it's not like we're producing saltier and saltier water over time? So aside from the increased salinity at the specific location where the brine is returned to the sea, is there another issue? Am I missing something that makes all this a large scale problem?
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  Not necessarily a “large scale” problem but the increased salinity means you create a enormous dead zone near your output system unless you spend a ton of energy to mitigate it. We had Bechtel design us a desalination/RO system for a biofuel startup I worked with and to prevent the dead zone, you need a massive system of buried pipes in the ocean. Iirc, it was the most expensive part of the entire design since you need to output it over something like a square kilometer and you need to mix in fresh seawater at several points to dilute the effluent before you release it. So in addition to the CapEx of a construction project in a horribly hostile environment, you have permanent energy consumption even past the filters. And of course, since it’s coastal, there are tons of regulations and government bodies interested in making sure you don’t cut corners.
  - hasmanean 5y ago
    Wow, most people never consider the dead-zone around desalination plants. Us landlubbers just think of it as manna from heaven, “free freshwater.” The way we discuss technical solutions is woefully inadequate. Everything is still presented as a miracle-cure for our problems. We should have a more mature understanding of how these things are constructed and maintained.
    - goldenkey 5y ago
      The ocean is pretty big. That's why fish poop and pee in it. Not much of a problem. And if you weren't already aware, did you know plants also excrete waste through their roots? I only found out recently. But yes, all waste needs to be spread out and able to diffuse into the large atmosphere or it causes dead zones.
benevol 5y ago
The solutions described are not the ultimate ones, yet. The real solution will be to: "Make salt magnetic and pull it out of the water, in real-time, with electro-magnets." https://audio.kryon.com/en/What's%20Wrong%20Today.mp3 https://audio.kryon.com/en/What's%20Wrong%20Today.mp3 (start the audio at 18:20, for the gist and some more details)
- goldenkey 5y ago
  It's one of those "hipster" podcasts by the UI designer at _that_ startup: https://whats-wrong-with-the-podcast.simplecast.com/ https://whats-wrong-with-the-podcast.simplecast.com/ "Make oxygen magnetic and then just pull it out of water to produce hydrogen" I too like to fantasize. :-)
  - Forbo 5y ago
    What's wrong with the link? :-P > "Unconfigured Simplecast Domain You are seeing this page because your website is not configured properly."
    - goldenkey 5y ago
      It couldn't deal with HN traffic I guess. Here's a cache link: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ImywwLhoQwgJ:https://whats-wrong-with-the-podcast.simplecast.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ImywwL...
  - robocat 5y ago
    > Make oxygen magnetic and then just pull it out of water Liquid oxygen is paramagnetic and it is attracted to a magnet. https://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae493.cfm https://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae493.cfm Disclaimer: Sorry if that was what you were alluding to... the person on the GP's audio clip was too annoying for me to waste time listening to it.
    - goldenkey 5y ago
sandworm101 5y ago
Would there even be any brine? If they take out the lithium but don't take any water out (remix everything other than lithium) then the net effect on salinity would be almost nothing. It would make economic sense to colocated, to also do freshwater extraction at the same facility, but the removal of the lithium would then be beside the point. I wonder if the process can work for other more valuable substances. Uranium from seawater has been done for a while now. This process might make it cheaper than mining. The world could change if every country with access to the sea can start extracting such things.
brightball 5y ago
Between this and the discovery of producing Graphene without mining, the future of battery tech should be really interesting. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/05/13/ev-range-breakthrough-as-new-aluminum-ion-battery-charges-60-times-faster-than-lithium-ion/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/05/13/ev-ran...

sandworm101 5y ago

It depends. There is chemistry here too, not just physical membranes. Higher concentrations of everything else might interfere with only getting at the lithium.

scythe 5y ago

You can obtain a few things from desalination brines. Magnesium is the most plentiful, besides salt, of course. There's also some sulfur, bromine and boron that might be worth recovering. It's mostly theoretical, of course.

AYBABTME 5y ago

The concern over brine is something I'm willing to contemplate but on the face of it, it seems to me that brine would only be a problem in the immediate zone where it is returned. And then again the fresh water produced along with the brine will end up back in mostly the same surrounding after it gets used, so it's not like we're producing saltier and saltier water over time? So aside from the increased salinity at the specific location where the brine is returned to the sea, is there another issue? Am I missing something that makes all this a large scale problem?

mikeyouse 5y ago
Not necessarily a “large scale” problem but the increased salinity means you create a enormous dead zone near your output system unless you spend a ton of energy to mitigate it. We had Bechtel design us a desalination/RO system for a biofuel startup I worked with and to prevent the dead zone, you need a massive system of buried pipes in the ocean. Iirc, it was the most expensive part of the entire design since you need to output it over something like a square kilometer and you need to mix in fresh seawater at several points to dilute the effluent before you release it. So in addition to the CapEx of a construction project in a horribly hostile environment, you have permanent energy consumption even past the filters. And of course, since it’s coastal, there are tons of regulations and government bodies interested in making sure you don’t cut corners.
- hasmanean 5y ago
  Wow, most people never consider the dead-zone around desalination plants. Us landlubbers just think of it as manna from heaven, “free freshwater.” The way we discuss technical solutions is woefully inadequate. Everything is still presented as a miracle-cure for our problems. We should have a more mature understanding of how these things are constructed and maintained.
  - goldenkey 5y ago
    The ocean is pretty big. That's why fish poop and pee in it. Not much of a problem. And if you weren't already aware, did you know plants also excrete waste through their roots? I only found out recently. But yes, all waste needs to be spread out and able to diffuse into the large atmosphere or it causes dead zones.

benevol 5y ago

The solutions described are not the ultimate ones, yet. The real solution will be to: "Make salt magnetic and pull it out of the water, in real-time, with electro-magnets." https://audio.kryon.com/en/What's%20Wrong%20Today.mp3 https://audio.kryon.com/en/What's%20Wrong%20Today.mp3 (start the audio at 18:20, for the gist and some more details)

goldenkey 5y ago
It's one of those "hipster" podcasts by the UI designer at _that_ startup: https://whats-wrong-with-the-podcast.simplecast.com/ https://whats-wrong-with-the-podcast.simplecast.com/ "Make oxygen magnetic and then just pull it out of water to produce hydrogen" I too like to fantasize. :-)
- Forbo 5y ago
  What's wrong with the link? :-P > "Unconfigured Simplecast Domain You are seeing this page because your website is not configured properly."
  - goldenkey 5y ago
    It couldn't deal with HN traffic I guess. Here's a cache link: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ImywwLhoQwgJ:https://whats-wrong-with-the-podcast.simplecast.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ImywwL...
- robocat 5y ago
  > Make oxygen magnetic and then just pull it out of water Liquid oxygen is paramagnetic and it is attracted to a magnet. https://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae493.cfm https://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae493.cfm Disclaimer: Sorry if that was what you were alluding to... the person on the GP's audio clip was too annoying for me to waste time listening to it.
  - goldenkey 5y ago

sandworm101 5y ago

Would there even be any brine? If they take out the lithium but don't take any water out (remix everything other than lithium) then the net effect on salinity would be almost nothing. It would make economic sense to colocated, to also do freshwater extraction at the same facility, but the removal of the lithium would then be beside the point. I wonder if the process can work for other more valuable substances. Uranium from seawater has been done for a while now. This process might make it cheaper than mining. The world could change if every country with access to the sea can start extracting such things.

brightball 5y ago

Between this and the discovery of producing Graphene without mining, the future of battery tech should be really interesting. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/05/13/ev-range-breakthrough-as-new-aluminum-ion-battery-charges-60-times-faster-than-lithium-ion/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/05/13/ev-ran...