Possible breakthrough in battery technology for cars, etc.

[Fairportfan]

Using salt water to power our batteries
By | October 1, 2012, 3:05 AM PDT

One of the main foundations of the electric battery packs powering our cell phones and electric vehicles is lithium, a pricey, lightweight metal that is one reason why electric batteries remain so expensive. According to an analyst for Toronto-based Byron Capital Markets, the price of lithium has risen 35 percent in the last 18 months.

As a result, many companies are trying to find ways to reduce the cost of extracting lithium - it is usually mined from ore. Simbol Materials, based in Pleasanton, CA, believes that using evaporation to extract lithium from brine - salt water - could be a much more cost-effective means of obtaining the metal.

With projected annual sales of 3.9 million hybrids, 1.4, million plug-in hybrids, and 2.8 million full electric plug-in vehicles by 2020, according to Simbol’s CEO Luka Erceg, the demand for lithium will only rise. The company says it may increase its output from 8,000 tons a year to as many as 64,000 tons by 2020.



Simbol’s brine evaporation process takes the salty water from geothermal power plants and uses reverse osmosis to extract minerals. Simbol’s process takes between 90 minutes to 2 hours to complete - compared to a conventional evaporation process that can take up to 18 months.

With the earth’s massive supply of salt water, it could become the most abundant - and cost-effective - way to keep our cars and laptops powered.

[alj_ws]

interesting.

And even more, while it is not noted in the article, the type of brines used by geothermal, which is often more a soup than simply salted water, usually have also quite more a rare earths ratio than most soils, because of the fractured substrat type. If that is recoverable too, it is very valuable and we need them for our smartphones too.

[NOTDilbert]

Now all you need is a fleet of those floating gold-from-seawater extractors to fund the project, and away you go!

[Julie]

Now all you need is a fleet of those floating gold-from-seawater extractors to fund the project, and away you go!

Yeah...while their process may be more cost-effective than traditional extraction methods, I was wondering how expensive their mechanisms are. If those are less expensive, too...then several someones at the other companies really screwed up.

[alj_ws]

Now all you need is a fleet of those floating gold-from-seawater extractors to fund the project, and away you go!

Yeah...while their process may be more cost-effective than traditional extraction methods, I was wondering how expensive their mechanisms are. If those are less expensive, too...then several someones at the other companies really screwed up.

reverse osmosis is not a costly process per se. However the base material, sludge like brine is probably quite aggressive and prone to deposit huge amounts of silica and calcite in every nook and cranny it can. Keeping the thing in operation, expecially an osmosis system which need to reverse flow for cleaning on a regular basis is probably the difficult part. Worse, as silica is deposited, the brine can turn from very aciditic (PH 3.5) to high basic values, and this very fast.

So I would expect maintenance to be rather heavy, and thus quite costly.