Slashing CO2Batteries that mine lithium.
Big Picture
Lithium demand is growing 2x as fast as supply, threatening to bottleneck the “inevitable” transition to clean power and transportation just as it was getting started. Yet, lithium is abundant globally, with known reserves 250x greater than today’s annual production. The tricky part is cost-effectively separating lithium from metal contaminants like magnesium in brines or cobalt and nickel in end-of-life batteries.
How it Works
Lithios’ advanced lithium extraction (ALE) selectively pulls lithium from all manner of fluids, no matter how diluted or contaminated. Leveraging the same physics as a charging battery, brines flow through cells that pluck out lithium ions and store them in electrodes. This process can concentrate the ions into industry-spec lithium outputs, compressing multiple costly value chain steps into a single device.
Unfair Advantage
ALE unlocks cost-effective and scalable lithium extraction from enormous resource sites and battery waste streams considered too dilute, costly, or contaminated to access with conventional technology. Moreover, directly outputting key battery-grade components on-site without further processing halves the length of the value chain and obsoletes significant drivers of cost, time, complexity, and equipment.
50
Percent fewer
lithium processing steps
MO ALKHADRA CEO & CO-FOUNDER
Mo holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Bazant Lab at MIT where he focused on electrochemical ion separations.
MARTIN BAZANT CSO & CO-FOUNDER
Martin is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Mathematics at MIT, as well as the President of the International Electrokinetics Society.
Electrochemical methods for water purification, ion separations, and energy conversion
Chemical Reviews