A research team led by scientists within the Energy Geosciences Division has received funding through Berkeley Lab’s Strategic Planning Support Activities and Laboratory Directed Research Development programs to work towards establishing a Lithium Resource Research and Innovation Center (LiRRIC).
In partnership with researchers from the Energy Technologies and Energy Sciences Areas at Berkeley Lab, EGD scientists Mike Whittaker and Laura Lammers will lead a collaboration between industry, academia, and national laboratories to identify basic research needs in the lithium cycle and develop new extraction and processing technologies.
The demand for lithium, a key ingredient of most batteries, is expected to grow tenfold by 2030 as vehicles, buildings, and other sectors increasingly go electric. Berkeley Lab scientists are working to accelerate the development of new technologies for extracting and processing this valuable metal from unconventional sources such as geothermal brine, a byproduct of geothermal energy production near California’s Salton Sea, an area with the potential to produce more than 600,000 tons of lithium carbonate annually for a potential $7.2 billion per year.