Ah, lithium. Remember the song “Lithium” by the band Nirvana? Remember when it was just a mood stabilizing drug? Well, nowadays portable electronic devices and electrically powered cars may not be possible without it.
The race to secure limited lithium resources and market share will primarily be between Chinese, Japanese and Korean companies. Boliva has what might be the biggest reserves and Lee Myung-bak sent his brother to try and secure exclusive access. POSCO claims it has technology that can extract it from the sea. The Japanese doubt that as they have been trying to do it efficiently (and failed) for decades.
In cars the new technology is lithium polymer, a more durable and heat resistant technology than lithium ion, the older technology that powers your cell phone and laptops. Koreans have an edge there with LG Chem and Samsung SDI. But with Japan’s Sanyo vowing to stay number 1 and China’s BYD pushing hard with money from Warren Buffet, it’s going to be a brutal race for the next several decades.
Lastly, here is some practical information for everybody. Tricks and tips to keep your lithium battery in your phone or laptop lasting longer.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
I think POSCO’s claim has more to do with the eventual economic viability of seawater lithium extraction than improvements in extraction technology. I’d be slightly more worried about indium supplies for all of the indium tin oxide based tech. coming out of late.
KrZ,
But POSCO claims it’s 30% more effective than the Japanese technology…
Also, POSCO’s declared goals are extremely ambitious:
http://www.korea.net/news/news/newsView.asp?serial_no=20100209004
Lithium self sufficiency by 2015!!! Global domination????
Okay, I know Salon is not a great source for science topics such as this but:
http://www.salon.com/technology/the_gigaom_network/clean_tech/2010/03/10/will_seawater_stave_off_a_lithium_squeeze
But if POSCO can pull it off… my stocks will certainly be worth more!..
Possibly just as important to electric vehicles as the Li-ion based batteries will be Li-ion capacitors (LICs), which are hybrids of Li-ion batteries and supercapacitors. They will likely be used for regenerative braking, which batteries can’t handle because they have neither the required cyclability nor can they handle the power rates required for the application. LICs might see a lot of action in other applications, such as wind turbines. So yeah, we needs us some Li. Maybe if Korea can get their mitts on it, they can sell it to Japan, who looks to be (at least initially) the big player in LICs.
At 100% extraction efficiency they would still have to completely extract the lithium from 9,363,295 liters of seawater to get 1kg of Lithium salt, with the price of lithium at $100 a kg. Makes me wonder what POSCO is using… Maybe some special ion exchange resin left soaking in the open ocean.
Whatever they plan to use… I hope it’s legal… zing!
When someone figures out how to synthesize it, it’s all moot.
This is pure BS. Just imagine all the difficulties, marine creatures, pipe system, other metals, intake/outake, process and machinery corroding (with sea salt) and jamming up.
Pure baloney.
POSCO may have done some pilot studies but scaling up is just impossible. And, they may have to fight off pirates.
Korea may be in the process of buying Chilean or Argentine lithium mines. This “sea-harvesting” baloney is made up to lower the process, as negotiation ploy.
Sea-harvesting of any metal is BS. Pure BS.
Baduk FYI
http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LPOD&mid=tvh&oid=052&aid=0000284717
The last time I heard, desalination plants, off-shore oil platforms and such were doing quite well despite the difficulties you’ve listed and Korea hasn’t had a problem with pirates near its waters for quite some time. Thanks for the good laugh
Just a question. Not sure if anyone would know. If they filter lithium out of the ocean… what do they do with the other minerals? Perhaps they should sell those other minerals (including salt) to help pay for operating costs of the lithium extraction?
I thought the plant is to be built in Bolivia.
Now it seems they are going to build in Korea. At least, they will not have to worry about pirates.
However, as a chemist, I must say the process involves melting Li out of the rocks. The energy cost will be prohibitive. I guess they have to burn oil to do this. Think about the cost of oil, let alone pollution problem.
Oil will hit $200 per barrel soon. When Israelies hit Iranian nuke plants (circa 2013), it may hit $500 per barrel.
Depending on the method they are using there may not be any other minerals/metals being extracted. The manganese dioxide adsorbents in this article (http://www.ioes.saga-u.ac.jp/ioes-study/li/recovery/seawater.html) selectively react with lithium.
With Korean shipbuilding slowing down, POSCO had to do this (semi-Hwang) to get its stock price up.
Pulling Hwang again in Korea. It works!
Some wisecracker may say that Chilean Lithium rocks have to melted as well to get Li.
That is true. However, for POSCO, the rocks will be very dirty. Gook and gobbles of who-knows-what mixed in.
When you start burn this type of heterogeneous mixture, the temperature cannot go up. And, these things turn into carbon ashes. Carbon ashes mixed in with Li will be very difficulty to get rid of.
Definitely not battery-grade.
I hope you’re an organic chemist baduk.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9881869-54.html
Give these Hwangs five millions and forgeddaboutit. Looking at their website, they still found no takers.
http://www.simbolmining.com/
At least, they had a right idea. In stead of ocean, look for a place where “Lithium is being woozed out of ground” like geothermal power plants.
Them dynosaurs, geo plants, need reason to exist anyway. It takes more energy to pump out geothermal heat.
These kinds of “emperor-without-clothes” must continue to satisfy environmental bull-doo-doos. Coal, natural gas and nuclear are the only viable options.
I am a bioorganicphysical chemist with MS degree. I also hold a MS degree in computer science.
Exchange resin? With fish doos floating in? Good luck.
Bioorganicphysical chemistry is an interesting subject, I also enjoyed electromechanicalbiocivil engineering and discretecalculus lineargametheoryalgebra.
That was funny KrZ…
I have to agree w/baduk on this though (suprise suprise!). Extracting lithium from the sea sounds like scifi. But… Koreans are not the type to spend a lot of money on infrastructure for no good reason. If those goes from drawing board to actual implimentation then it will certainly have my attention.
Well, I worked with RNAtranscription enzyme(RNA polymerase) from e-coli. I grew e-coli and harvested them. Open them up to release enzymes and did several columns to get RNA polymerase. The assay is done by having them run on DNA to make RNA. I did calculation on how this enzyme transversed on DNA and matched with lab result.
That qualifies me for biophysical chemistry.
During undergrad time, I did quantum mechanical calculation to get reaction pathway. That qualifies me for a TheoreticalOrganic chemist.
I have diverse background in chemistry.
That makes sense baduk because I know you didn’t get any degrees in political science or history…
My motorola droid runs with a lithium polymer battery.
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