Is this a new article?
How do we accomplish this?
1. Environmental Commitment: Unfortunately, operations utilizing current
commercial lithium extraction technologies will probably not be able to meet
these standards. As we pointed out above, legacy operations are controlled by
the chemistry and physics of their process designs. Therefore, it is very
difficult or impossible to modify them enough to make a real difference.
Thus, we believe that the key to achieving our collective goal of Ethical
Lithium Production is to identify advanced technologies and processes that are
inherently more efficient and less wasteful than current operations.
To this end, the author of this article has spent years analyzing the lithium
extraction industry. Since forming International Battery Metals, we have come
a long way. We are completing our first commercial scale Mobile Lithium
Extraction System, which is specifically designed to address these ethical
issues. This first of its kind facility can be rapidly built and deployed to
essentially any location that has adequate brine resources.
Due to its novel patented design, the system is capable of extracting lithium
chloride from brines and transferring it to water. This is a one pass process
that does not require acid, base or other chemicals. The process can extract
greater than 90% of the lithium chloride in the brine. Simultaneously, the
process rejects greater than 99% of all brine impurities, including magnesium,
sulfate and borate.
A key accomplishment for us is the development of a proprietary technology
that recycles greater than 98% of our process water. This allows us to avoid
taking water from aquafers that are critical to indigenous people that live
around target salars.
Finally, our equipment is modular and mobile. Thus, we can rapidly deploy the
equipment to target resources. When we are finished. The equipment can be
moved to a different location. We will leave nothing behind.
2. Human Rights and Dignity Commitment: We will use the highest possible
standards of fairness when dealing with indigenous peoples. Specifically, we
will not do anything that will cause actual or financial harm to people that are
located near our operations.
