Getting Extra Lithium, Sustainably — Summit Nanotech

The EV revolution is constructed on many stuff, however in all probability not anything else greater than lithium. We want lithium for all sorts of EV battery for all sorts of auto that must be electrified. The problem we’ve mentioned for the previous few years is that it takes a number of years to construct a lithium extraction facility, and getting the ok investments years or a decade prematurely is a large combat.

One corporate taking a look to lend a hand out here’s Summit Nanotech. The startup could also be aiming to extract lithium in additional sustainable and environmentally pleasant techniques. I lately spoke to Summit Nanotech’s CEO and Founder, Amanda Corridor, about what her corporate is doing to lend a hand.

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“We’ve advanced a sustainable lithium extraction procedure. And sustainable can imply many stuff to many of us, however particularly, we considering low water use, low power use, and bringing down our greenhouse fuel emissions as neatly lowering waste manufacturing and reagent use. So, we roughly assault the sustainability side of an extraction procedure from a whole lot of other angles. We’re deploying the generation into the brine house. Lithium mining occurs in arduous rock or brine. We don’t take care of the arduous rock mining; we paintings with brine miners in South The us. The generation can be utilized to tug lithium out of brine, which is saltwater. And we additionally do an development on yield, so we get double the yield in comparison to standard processes.

“So the generation’s operating nice. It’s piloting at this time in Chile. We’ve 6 pilot companions and it’s going fairly neatly.

“I’m a geophysicist, and so I have a look at the mining downside for battery metals as one thing we wish to in point of fact manner delicately, as stewards of the Earth, and as people who need a greater long run. We will’t simply get started ripping up the bottom and making batteries with out placing a large number of concept into doing it sustainably and doing it neatly. And in order that’s what our corporate specializes in.”

In South The us, they’re making a lithium carbonate product with companions in Chile and Argentina. That is going to cathode manufacturers. In North The us, the corporate creates a lithium hydroxide product from a clay feedstock.

That’s from as regards to 3 mins of the 27-minute interview. I requested Amanda to additionally let us know a little extra about who she is and the way she were given into this box in addition to some fresh fundraising from very notable traders. And I requested her about her big-picture view of the lithium marketplace globally. For a lot more on all of that, concentrate to the entire episode.

As one ultimate teaser, Summit Nanotech says its direct lithium extraction (DLE) generation has the possible to scale back manufacturing time from 18 months to at least one day! Once more, concentrate to the episode for extra on that.

 

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