Houston-based International Battery Metals (IBAT) has brought North America’s first commercial direct lithium extraction (DLE) facility online, the company said July 11, marking a milestone in efforts to ramp up production of the critical metal in the U.S.
At a co-located site with US Magnesium near Salt Lake City, IBAT is extracting lithium chloride from a byproduct magnesium chloride/lithium chloride brine for US Mag.
“We are steadily ramping up production to meet our initial goal of greater than 4,500 mt [metric tons] and then plan to ramp up to as much as 9,000 mt/year,” John Burba, founder and CTO of IBAT, told Hart Energy in a statement.
IBAT uses a proprietary absorbent to filter lithium from brine. After the lithium is extracted, the brine is returned to its source.
“This kicks off a U.S. lithium production renaissance and creates the potential for a sea change in global lithium supplies,” Burba said in a news release announcing the facility’s startup.
The facility’s modular design—the world’s first at commercial scale—can bring lithium to market in about 18 months compared to the five years to seven years required for a conventional DLE plant to be constructed onsite, according to IBAT.
The DLE facility’s startup comes as the U.S. aims to increase domestic production of lithium, which is a critical ingredient for energy storage such as electric vehicle (EV) batteries, systems that back up intermittent renewables on large-scale power grids and electronic devices. Despite having an abundance of lithium resources—about 12 million tons based on the U.S. Geological Survey’s estimates—the nation has only one active lithium mine.
DLE advances
Unlike lithium mined from rock in open pits, DLE is considered a method of extracting lithium that requires less land and is better for the environment. The process involves pulling lithium directly from brine using technologies and processes such as adsorption, resin or membranes. It does not involve the use of evaporation ponds, where brine sits for several months or years as the sun evaporates most of the liquid content, leaving behind lithium and other metals that are pumped to a facility for processing.
“IBAT’s DLE technology selectively extracts lithium ions via absorption with a proprietary crystal structure, resulting in a lithium-chloride solution with the requisite feedstock purity to produce battery-grade lithium,” the company said. “The technology has been independently verified by SLR and Mehos Consulting to extract more than 97% of available lithium from Smackover brine.”
The company said up to 98% of the water used is recycled via a closed-loop system.
Burba, who invented the lithium absorbent used in the world’s first DLE plant at Hombre Muerto in Argentina for FMC Technologies, said IBAT assembled the modular plant in four weeks in Utah after it was moved from Louisiana.
“We’ve spent around $25 [million] to $30 million on it. So, there’s a significant cost differential,” Burba told Hart Energy earlier this year. He compared the price to another announced plant with an extraction piece priced at about $300 million.
“There are several reasons for that. One is the absorbent efficiency is really excellent. So, we can get high productivity rates. But the other piece is we don’t have a cast of thousands working four or five years to build a plant. This is built within a fab shop,” which reduces construction cost.
Plus, the plant is portable. “We can move this thing anywhere,” he said.
More to come?
Besides IBAT, several companies—including Standard Lithium, Volt Lithium and Albermarle, plus oil players Equinor, Exxon Mobil and Occidental Petroleum among others—are looking to commercialize DLE in North America.
“Within the United States, several regions that have historically been developed for oil and gas production have identified large lithium rich brine aquifers, which are ideal for our technology,” Burba said. “One area of focus is the Smackover formation, which includes parts of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. There is also development interest in the Utica Formation and the Bakken Formation.”
Working with partner Equinor, Standard Lithium is targeting commercial-scale lithium production in the Smackover and exploring lithium brine prospects in East Texas. In April, Standard said it successfully commissioned the first commercial-scale DLE column in North America. The Li-Pro Lithium Selective Sorption unit, supplied by Koch Technology Solutions, was installed at the company’s demonstration plant near El Dorado, Arkansas.
In Utah, IBAT said it plans to install additional columns on the existing DLE modular platform.
The company said it is also in talks with automakers, oil and gas majors and brine resource owners as it looks to build out its operations under the leadership of Iris Jancik, who steps into the CEO position in mid-August.
“We are evaluating projects across the United States,” Burba said. “Our technology, due to the high lithium selectivity of our proprietary absorbent and the ability to use our modular design to quickly scale operations, is suitable for refining a wide variety of lithium-containing brines.”
Companies have stepped up efforts to produce lithium amid the continued push to lower emissions. The Biden administration wants to see EVs account for half of all new vehicles sales in the U.S. by 2030. Data from MarketWatch show about 1.6 million EVs were sold in the U.S. in 2023, up 60% from the year prior. In total, more than 16 million cars were sold last year.
So far, billions of dollars in federal grants and loans have been made available to incentivize action. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office gave a $2.26 billion conditional loan commitment to Lithium Americas Corp. subsidiary Lithium Nevada to help finance a lithium carbonate processing plant at Thacker Pass in Nevada.