Device extracts lithium from Dead Sea brine

Sustainable ways to obtain lithium are necessary to make batteries for an increasingly electrified world. An efficient new electrochemical device that could extract the critical metal from thousands of liters of seawater at a time offers a way forward ( Science 2024, DOI: 10.1126/science.adg8487 ). The device, which relies on a cheap electrode material used in today’s lithium-ion batteries, can extract over 84% of lithium from natural or simulated Dead Sea water. Dead Sea waters contain lithium salts at 40 parts per million (ppm)—relatively low compared to the hundreds of ppm in brines mined today. “We are trying to extract lithium from unconventional resources to solve lithium supply issues,” says Zhiping Lai , a chemical engineer at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Lithium is mined today mostly from concentrated brines or hard-rock ores. The former involves environmentally damaging evaporative ponds, and the latter is energy intensive. Companies