Posted by Daniel Gleeson on eleventh September 2024
SLB says it has confirmed its resolution for sustainable lithium manufacturing at scale at its demonstration plant in Clayton Valley, Nevada, to speed up responsibly-sourced lithium merchandise to market.
The proprietary built-in resolution combines SLB’s subsurface experience with floor engineering of superior applied sciences that embody direct lithium extraction (DLE). It produces lithium 500 instances quicker than standard strategies whereas utilizing solely 10% of the land, based on the corporate. Working at roughly one tenth the dimensions of a commercial-scale facility, the plant reached a verified restoration rate1 of 96% lithium from brine.
SLB’s built-in resolution is a whole, end-to-end course of that features superior impurity remedy and focus applied sciences to provide high-purity lithium carbonate or hydroxide. The answer additionally makes use of considerably much less water, power and fewer chemical reagents compared to different DLE-based choices.
“Lithium is a key enabler of electrification, so we should discover methods to speed up its manufacturing with out adversely affecting the surroundings,” Gavin Rennick, president of SLB’s New Vitality enterprise, mentioned. “SLB’s demonstration plant in Clayton Valley proves our distinctive built-in strategy to provide scalable portions of lithium within the quickest, most economical and sustainable method for at this time’s market. This accelerates deployment of viable commercial-scale services for high-quality lithium merchandise which can be the spine of our electrification financial system.”
The traditional different for producing lithium from brine at scale is evaporation. This course of not solely requires a major quantity of land but in addition leads to huge water loss. Salt, underground minerals and used chemical substances are then left on the floor, creating influence on biodiversity and the surroundings. SLB’s sustainable lithium manufacturing resolution enhances sustainability by decreasing water use. The proprietary course of additionally returns the spent brine, or the brine with a lowered lithium focus, again to its supply after the lithium is processed and separated.
Your entire SLB resolution, from extracting lithium from brine to changing it to technical-grade lithium carbonate, takes simply hours. By comparability, evaporation strategies can take as much as 18 months and have a a lot decrease restoration fee of fifty% or much less, SLB says.
In proving this resolution at its pilot plant, SLB accomplished particular technical milestones permitting it to totally qualify beneath the earn-in settlement with Pure Vitality Minerals Ltd. and, at its possibility, might purchase 100% possession curiosity within the Clayton Valley Mission.
