Lithium reserves
Lithium reserves are mainly in South America, Australia, and North America:
Lithium Mining
Lithium supplies are controlled by the following companies, particularly Chinese companies.China controls 80% of the world’s raw material refining, 77% of the world’s cell capacity, and 60% of the world’s component manufacturing.
10 largest lithium mines in the world
10 large Li producing companies
Battery-Grade Lithium Extraction
Battery-grade lithium is produced mainly by three methods (reference):
- Mining & acid leaching from spodumene ores. LiAl(SiO3)2 –>lithium sulfate (Li2SO4) solution –> battery-grade lithium carbonate (Li2CO3)or hydroxide (LiOH) via electrochemical processes. Processing spodumene dominates Australian production. Meanwhile, acid-free leaching processes have been developed as well, which is said to be the kind of process Tesla is using in their new lithium hydroxide plant being built next to their Texas Gigafactory (ref). A Video for this process (YouTube)
- Concentration & precipitation. By evaporation–> lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) from brines via evaporation ponds. This process is mainly adopted in areas with high evaporation rates such as elevated deserts in South America.
- Direct lithium extraction (DLE). Lithium absorption from saline water –> an ion exchange type material or bead–> washing with hydrochloric acid–> dilute lithium chloride (LiCl) with impurities. DLE is adopted in North America and China, where lithium resources have higher hardness and it is not suitable for evaporation ponds. A video about DLE process (Youtube)
One class of sorbents, known as layered double hydroxides (LDH), can be used in DLE process (ref). For certain area, Geothermal may co-exist with Lithium brine sources; therefore Geothermal plant and DLE plant can co-exist to have the best economical benefits and minimize the impact on environment.