Lithium
Overview
Volvera through ExSorbtion Inc. has the rights to an exclusive worldwide license of lithium-extraction technology from Stanford Research International (“SRI”) for extracting lithium from oilfield and geothermal brines, and salars.
Stanford Research International (“SRI”) has a history of turning bold visions into real-world products and practices. SRI and its former employees have launched more than 60 spin-off ventures in a wide range of fields, including Siri (acquired by Apple), Tempo AI (acquired by Salesforce.com), Redwood Robotics (acquired by Google), Desti (acquired by HERE), Grabit, Kasisto, Artificial Muscle, Inc. (acquired by Bayer MaterialScience), Nuance Communications, Intuitive Surgical, Ravenswood Solutions, and Orchid Cellmark.
For decades, commercial lithium production relied upon mineral ore sources such as spodumene, petalite and lepidolite. Extracting lithium from such sources, however, is significantly more expensive than extracting the metal from lithium-containing brines. In fact, it is estimated that the cost of extracting lithium from hard rock is double that of producing from brines, explaining why most such sources have been priced out of the market over the past 20 years. On the other hand, Lithium production from brines using evaporation ponds while lower in cost than mining is extremely slow (takes 2 years or more), requires a large amount of land (would need 15 sq. miles. to produce lithium for 1GW of lithium batteries), expensive (hundreds of millions of dollars in construction and maintenance costs), low-efficiency (only 40-50% recovery), and toxic to the surrounding environment (both flora and fauna).
Selective Adsorption of lithium from (oilfield, geothermal) brines and salars is known to be one of the least expensive and “greenest” ways to produce large amounts of lithium in which i) the lithium in brine attaches to “millions” of tiny beads held in columns, ii) the brine is then drained back underground and a solution containing carbon dioxide gas is then passed through the columns which extracts the lithium carbonate and some other constituents from the beads, iii) this solution is then pumped and processed to produce high-quality lithium carbonate powder which is currently being sold for $12,000/ton.
Initial testing by SRI has already demonstrated excellent results, which based on our understanding are significantly better than any other commercialized technology and could enable the lowest-cost lithium extraction process. Some of the excellent results are mentioned below:
- Demonstrated High Lithium uptake (5-15 mg/g of sorbent) and Lithium Selectivity (Li/Na: ~5,000; Li/K: ~1,000; Li/Mg: ~500, Li/Ca: ~750) from oilfield and geothermal brines
- Lithium separation or selectivity factors are very high which allows lithium extraction form brines that have very low lithium (> 40pm) content with high concentrations of Na+, K+, and Mg2+, and Ca2+ ions
- Demonstrated fast kinetics of lithium uptake in flow-through column with residence time of less than 2 minutes making this process suitable for high flow processing of brines
Very fast sorbent regeneration that takes less than 5 minutes, thereby enabling potentially the fastest lithium extraction process
- Sorbent regeneration using gas instead of acids, that not only lowers costs but also eliminates acid waste streams and reduces carbon footprint
- Potentially the longest sorbent life of 500+ cycles compared to 100-150 cycles for competing sorbents, which significantly reduces operating costs as sorbent costs ~30% of the overall operating costs
| COST | PERFORMANCE | TIME |
|---|---|---|
| ~5X lower Operating Costs compared to Lithium Evaporation
~2X lower Lithium Carbonate Production Cost |
High Lithium uptake and Lithium Selectivity
Does not require acids and this eliminates acid wastes streams |
Fastest Lithium Adsorption – ~2 minutes v/s days
Fastest Lithium Regeneration – ~5 minutes v/s days |
ExSorbtion has invested CA$572,000 toward technology development and has the right to secure an exclusive global license for SRI’s mineral extraction technology and any improvements thereof by paying a $250,000 licensing fee by April 4, 2019. It is expected that the first mobile lithium-extraction unit will be operational in Q1/Q2, 2019 and will be deployed at multiple oilfield and/or geothermal fields for extracting lithium from those locations. In the meanwhile, Volvera will also secure partnerships with leading oilfield, geothermal and salar asset owners to begin planning for setting-up large-scale lithium extraction plant(s).
Technology Overview
Stanford Research International (“SRI”) has conducted significant research and development for this lithium extraction technology. SRI, created in 1946, currently with 2,100 employees including over 500 Phd’s, has decades of experience in high-value R&D and product development, which has led to the formation of several new companies that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in development and growth capital and have created billions of dollars in shareholder value.
SRI’s lithium recovery process is based on a patent-pending, highly selective, low-cost, and reusable sorbent that can be processed as macroporous beads to allow fast, selective binding. When the brine comes in contact with the sorbent, Lithium ions are captured and concentrated in the sorbent. With reaction time (kinetics) of minutes and not days, coupled with very high selectivity of lithium; this technology enables the lowest-cost extraction of lithium from brines. Our technology involves novel sorbents and proprietary processes to extract lithium (regeneration) from these sorbents.
Strong Intellectual Property around sorbent chemistry and composition, mineral extraction and regeneration has already been filed, and over $2 million has already been invested by a non-affiliated entity in technology (product and process) development along with developing and patenting strong Intellectual Property.
Schematic illustration of the synthesis of metal-imprinted polymers
Initial Testing has already demonstrated excellent results, which based on our understanding is significantly better than any other commercialized technology and could enable the lowest-cost lithium extraction process. Some of the excellent results are mentioned below:
- Demonstrated very high lithium uptake capacity of ~20 mg Li/g sorbent
- Lithium separation or selectivity factors are very high which allows lithium extraction form brines that have very low lithium (> 40pm) content with high concentrations of Na+, K+, and Mg2+, and Ca2+ ions
- Demonstrated fast kinetics of lithium uptake in flow-through column with residence time of less than 2 minutess
- Lithium uptake kinetics are very fast, suitable for high flow processing of brines
- Very fast sorbent regeneration that takes minutes instead of hours / days / years
Selective Adsorption Overview
Selective Adsorption is an ion exchange process where a specific sorbent (adsorption medium) selectively adsorbs a specific material. In this case, SRI’s patent-pending metal imprinted polymer sorbent selectively extracts lithium from an oilfield or geothermal brine. An oilfield or geothermal brine has many constituents apart from lithium, such as salts (sodium, potassium, calcium, etc.) and other materials (iron, boron, silica, manganese, etc.). In a liter of brine, lithium would be in the range of 40-200 milliliters (ppm), which is a minute fraction of the other brine constituents. The magic of Selective Adsorption lies in the Sorbents ability to adsorb more lithium than any other constituent. In this case, 90+% of the total minerals absorbed by SRI’s metal imprinted polymer would be lithium even though lithium is only a small fraction of the overall brine constituent.
In the Selective Adsorption process, the brine flows through a tall column stacked with Sorbents. The Sorbents absorb large quantities of the desired mineral/metal and smaller quantities of the other brine constituents. The brine is flowed through the sorbents in the stacked columns till almost all the desired mineral/metal has been recovered. The sorbents are then leached in acid or gas to remove the adsorbed materials from the sorbents, and finally the adsorbed material goes through crystallization and other simple processes to separate the lithium carbonate from other undesired materials. The Sorbents are then regenerated for next cycle of Selective Adsorption.
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| Sorption | Is a chemical and physical process by which one substance becomes attached to another. |
| Elution | Is a process opposite to the sorption process in the sense of obtaining the sorbed chemical species. |
| Regeneration | Is a process opposite to sorption in the sense of obtaining the initial form of the ion exchanger. |