Chinese scientists discover method to extract lithium from seawater

Chinese scientists say they have discovered a method to extract lithium from seawater, offering an efficient alternative amid increasing demand for the chemical element in renewable energy technologies, the South China Morning Post reported on Friday, quoting a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Science.

Lithium is mainly sourced from hard rock ores, which involve energy-intensive and environmentally costly processes. But the new process presents a novel seawater lithium extraction technique using solar energy.

A team of researchers led by Zhu Jia, of Nanjing University, and Mi Baoxia, from the University of California, Berkeley, proposed a solar transpiration-powered lithium extraction and storage (STLES) device that uses sunlight to extract and store lithium from brine.

There are around 230 billion tons of lithium under the seawater, which is about 16,000 times the reserves of the metal that can be exploited now.

Due to the high cost and other technical challenges, seawater lithium extraction has not yet become main source of lithium. But the new research may pave way for its extraction.