How new lithium extraction technology could help us meet electric vehicle targets

Published

2 years ago

June 5, 2023

admin

The world contains vast quantities of lithium, an integral element in electric vehicle batteries. And though lithium is commonly mined from hard rock, the majority of the world’s lithium reserves are actually found in brine, extremely salty water beneath the Earth’s surface.

Today, brine mining involves evaporating the brine in massive, extravagantly colored pools over a series of about 18 months, leaving high concentrations of lithium behind. It’s a simple but inefficient process that takes up vast swaths of land and is ecologically disruptive.

As automakers around the world struggle to meet extraordinarily ambitious electric vehicle production targets, there’s growing interest in doing things differently.

“The auto industry requires a 20x increase in lithium supply, and there’s just no way to achieve that type of growth with conventional technologies,” said Dave Snydacker, founder and CEO of Lilac Solutions.

Lilac is one of a number of companies piloting a set of new and largely unproven technologies called direct lithium extraction, or DLE, which could increase the efficiency and decrease the negative externalities of the brine mining process.

Instead of concentrating lithium by evaporating brine in large pools, DLE pulls the brine directly into a processing unit, puts it through a series of chemical processes to separate the lithium, then injects it back underground. This process produces battery-grade lithium carbonate or hydroxide in a matter of hours, without the need to transport concentrated brine to a separate processing facility.

DLE could also help jump-start the domestic lithium mining market. Today, most lithium brine mining takes place in the Salar de Atacama, an expansive salt flat in northern Chile that contains the highest quality lithium brine in the world. But DLE technologies require much less land and can help unlock resources in areas where the brine contains less lithium and more impurities.

North American companies Lilac Solutions, EnergyX and Standard Lithium are exploring lithium resources in areas such as Arkansas’ Smackover Formation, California’s Salton Sea and Utah’s Great Salt Lake, as well as abroad in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. The Chilean government has even announced that all new lithium projects will be required to use DLE technology.

“So the timing is right and ripe for this to see the light of day very, very soon,” said Amit Patwardhan, CTO of EnergyX.

Direct lithium extraction company EnergyX is building demonstration plants in Argentina, Chile, California, Utah and Arkansas.

EnergyX

Doing things differently

In a world before electric vehicles, traditional methods of brine mining and hard rock mining more than sufficed to meet global lithium demand.

“The world didn’t need DLE for the last 50 years. Lithium’s primary use was industrial — ceramics, glass and lubricants,” said Robert Mintak, CEO of Standard Lithium.

But with demand for EVs and the lithium-ion batteries that power them booming, now there’s a supply crunch.

“Over the last 10 years, 90% of new lithium production has come from hard rock projects. But hard rock projects are increasingly expensive as we go into lower grade resources. And if you add up all the hard rock projects, there’s just not enough resource out there to meet automaker goals. It’s the brine resources that are large enough to electrify the vehicle industry,” Snydacker said.

DLE is already being used to some extent in both Argentina and China, where the companies Livent and Sunresin are implementing commercial tech that combines DLE with traditional evaporation pond operations.

These companies both rely on a technology called adsorption, the only commercially proven approach to DLE. In this process, lithium molecules in the brine adhere to an adsorbant substance, removing them from surrounding impurities. But experts say that stripping the lithium from the adsorbents requires a lot of fresh water, a big problem considering many of the world’s best brine resources are in arid areas.

Livent’s most recent sustainability report indicates that it uses 71.4 metric tons of fresh water per metric ton of lithium carbonate equivalent, or LCE, produced. Lilac reported that in pilot testing it uses between 10 and 20 metric tons of fresh water, while EnergyX says it uses less than 20 metric tons.

China-based Sunresin says that it recycles all of its fresh water, and that its newer projects will operate without evaporation ponds.

But a host of other companies are now getting into the industry, testing out alternative technologies which they claim will not only eliminate evaporation ponds altogether, but increase yields while lowering energy and fresh water requirements.

New players

Bay Area-based Lilac Solutions is using a technology called ion exchange. It’s currently piloting its tech in Argentina in partnership with Australian lithium company Lake Resources.

“With the Lilac ion-exchange bead we’ve developed a ceramic material. This ceramic selectively absorbs lithium from the brine while releasing a proton. Once the lithium is absorbed into the material, we then flush the lithium out of the bead using dilute acid and that produces a lithium chloride concentrate which can be easily processed into battery grade chemicals,” Snydacker explained.

Lilac Solutions is developing a direct lithium extraction facility in Argentina in partnership with Australian lithium company Lake Resources.

Lilac Solutions

Lilac expects to have its first commercial-scale module operating before the end of 2024. The company is backed by BMW and the Bill Gates-funded Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Ford has signed a nonbinding agreement to buy lithium from its Argentina plant.

EnergyX, which is based out of both San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Austin, Texas, uses a combination of technologies that it can tailor to the specific brine resource. Step one is traditional adsorption, followed by a method known as “solvent extraction,” in which the concentrated brine is mixed with an organic liquid. The lithium is then transferred to the organic before it’s stripped free and concentrated. Membrane filtration is the final stage, which removes all remaining impurities.

“So you see these all these loops and synergies that come out of combining these technologies. And that is another big differentiator in what EnergyX does and what really drives the cost of the technology much lower compared to anybody else,” said Patwardhan.

EnergyX is building demonstration plants with undisclosed partners in Argentina, Arkansas, Chile, California and Utah, and is aiming to have the first two up and running by the end of this year. Recently, the company secured $50 million in funding from GM to help scale its tech.

Vancouver-based Standard Lithium also has big backers. The public company’s largest investor is Koch Industries, and it’s been running a demonstration plant in South Arkansas for the last three years, producing lithium at a preexisting bromine plant.

The company uses both ion-exchange and adsorption technologies, depending on the resource. It expects to begin construction on a commercial-scale DLE facility next year and is expanding into Texas as well.

“We have an opportunity as we expand from Arkansas to Texas to be the largest producing area for lithium chemicals in North America, utilizing in an area that’s not under water stress, that has a social license to operate,” said Mintak.

Companies such as Standard Lithium, which are leaning into the U.S. market, stand to benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act, which ties electric vehicle subsidies to domestic sourcing of battery materials. Automakers can also receive the full EV credit if they source from countries that have free trade agreements with the U.S., such as Chile.

While Chile has announced that all new lithium projects in the country will be required to use DLE technologies, it has not announced what companies it will be partnering with for these new projects.

Neighboring Bolivia was considering technology from both EnergyX and Lilac Solutions to help unlock the country’s vast but largely undeveloped lithium resources. The government ultimately tapped a consortium of Chinese companies, led by battery giant CATL, to spearhead DLE efforts in its salt flats.

Most new lithium supply will continue to come from hard rock projects for the rest of this decade, Snydacker said. “But by the end of this decade, we’ll see very large-scale brine projects coming online …” he predicted. “And going out into the next decade, this technology will provide a majority of new supply.”

Overall, lithium production from DLE is projected to grow from about 54,000 metric tons today to 647,500 metric tons by 2032, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. That’s forecast to be worth about $21.6 billion.

“But when we place it in relative terms against the rest of the global market, that only represents around 15% of total supply,” said James Mills, principal consultant at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. “So we’re still going to have to rely on traditional forms of production for the lithium units, whether it’s evaporation ponds or hard rock mining.”

Watch the video to learn more about the companies looking to bring direct lithium extraction into the mainstream.

Technology

CNBC Daily Open: The weight of Nvidia’s crown

Published

7 hours ago

November 26, 2025

admin

CNBC Daily Open: The weight of Nvidia's crown

Jensen Huang is interviewed by media during a reception for the 2025 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, at St James’ Palace November 5, 2025 in London, England, U.K.

Yui Mok | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

Shares of artificial intelligence czar Nvidia fell 2.6% on Tuesday as signs of unrest continued rippling through its kingdom.

Over the month, Nvidia has been contending with concerns over lofty valuations and an argument from the “The Big Short” investor Michael Burry that companies may be overestimating the lifespan of Nvidia’s chips. That accounting choice inflates profits, he alleged.

The pressure intensified last week in the form of a potential challenger to the crown. Google on Nov. 18 announced the release of its new AI model Gemini 3 — so far so good, given that Nvidia isn’t in the business of designing large language models — powered by its in-house AI chips — uh–oh.

And on Monday stateside, Meta, a potential kingmaker, appeared to signal that it is considering not just leasing Google’s custom AI chips, but also using them for its own data centers. It seemed like Nvidia felt the need to address some of those rumblings.

The chipmaker said on the social media platform X that its technology is more powerful and versatile than other types of AI chips, including the so-called ASIC chips, such as Google’s TPUs. Separately, Nvidia issued a private memo to Wall Street that disputed Burry’s allegations.

Power, whether in politics or semiconductors, requires a delicate balance.

Remaining silent may shroud those in power in a cloak of untouchability, projecting confidence in their authority — but also aloofness. Deigning to address unrest can soothe uncertainty, but also, paradoxically, signal insecurity.

For now, the crown is Nvidia’s to wear — and the weight of it is, too.

What you need to know today

The UK Autumn Budget 2025 is here. Britain prepares for a “smorgasbord” of tax hikes to be unveiled Wednesday. Follow CNBC’s coverage of the Budget throughout the day on our live blog here.

U.S. stocks advanced on Tuesday. Major indexes had their third straight winning session, erasing earlier intraday losses. Asia-Pacific markets rose Wednesday. Shares of Foxconn climbed more than 3% after the firm received approval for a contract amendment.

Meta is looking to use Google AI chips. That’s according to a Monday report by The Information. Nvidia on Tuesday wrote on X that its chips are “a generation ahead of the industry.” The chipmaker also sent analysts a memo on alleged bubble claims.

Taiwan President pledges $40 billion more for defense. Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s leader, on Wednesday said the self-governing island will improve its self-defense capabilities in the face of “unprecedented military buildup” by China.

[PRO] What to watch as UK budget is unveiled. Strategists told CNBC they will be monitoring the budget’s effects on interest rates, economic growth and the British pound — and one “rabbit out of the hat” from U.K. Finance Minister Rachel Reeves.

And finally…

Lights on in skyscrapers and commercial buildings on the skyline of the City of London, UK, on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. U.K. business chiefs urged Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves to ease energy costs and avoid raising the tax burden on corporate Britain as she prepares this year’s budget.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The UK’s Autumn Budget is coming: Here’s what it could mean for your money

The run-up to this year’s U.K. Autumn Budget has been different from the norm because so many different tax proposals have been floated, flagged, leaked and retracted in the weeks and months leading up to Wednesday’s statement.

It has also made it harder to gauge what we’re actually going to get when Finance Minister Rachel Reeves finally unveils her spending and taxation plans for the year ahead.

— Holly Ellyatt

Technology

Uber rolls out driverless robotaxis in Abu Dhabi

Published

7 hours ago

November 26, 2025

admin

Uber rolls out driverless robotaxis in Abu Dhabi

Driverless WeRide robotaxis for Uber.

Courtesy: Uber

Uber on Wednesday rolled out fully driverless rides in its fourth market, launching the service in Abu Dhabi in partnership WeRide, a Chinese autonomous vehicle company.

The ride-hailing company said the launch in the United Arab Emirates capital represents the first driverless robotaxi service in the Middle East. In the U.S., Uber already offers robotaxi services in Austin, Phoenix and Atlanta through Alphabet’s Waymo.

Riders in Abu Dhabi can book a WeRide robotaxi when requesting an UberX or Uber Comfort ride, the ride-hailing company said.

WeRide, which is listed on the Nasdaq, formed its partnership with Uber in September 2024 and began offering autonomous rides with an operator on board in Abu Dhabi last December. Uber and WeRide also debuted robotaxi rides with a safety operator on board in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia, in October. In May, Uber said it plans to roll out the WeRide service to 15 more cities, including in Europe, over the next five years.

In recent years, Uber has bet big on autonomous vehicle technology through partnerships.

Uber started offering a robotaxi service in Austin and Atlanta earlier this year, and in Phoenix in late 2023. In July, the company landed a six-year robotaxi deal with electric vehicle maker Lucid and AV startup Nuro.

WeRide, meanwhile, has launched full driverless robotaxi services in China’s Beijing and Guangzhou, according to its website.

Uber has not said how it splits revenue from robotaxi rides with its partners.

Competitors have also readily adopted the technology, with Lyft announcing a deal with Waymo in September to launch robotaxis in Nashville next year.

Uber said the driverless vehicles in Abu Dhabi will operate in certain areas of Yas Island. Riders can boost their chance of a robotaxi drive by selecting the autonomous option. On-board support is available during the ride through the app and an in-vehicle tablet.

WATCH: WeRide CEO: We are using both Tesla and Waymo’s approach to scale robotaxi operations

WeRide CEO: We are using Tesla and Waymo's approach to scale robotaxi operations

Technology

Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

Published

12 hours ago

November 26, 2025

admin

Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

Amazon’s new MK30 Prime Air drone is displayed during Amazon’s “Delivering the Future” event at the company’s BFI1 Fulfillment Center, Robotics Research and Development Hub in Sumner, Washington on Oct. 18, 2023.

Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images

Amazon is facing a federal probe after one of its delivery drones downed an internet cable in central Texas last week.

The probe comes as Amazon vies to expand drone deliveries to more pockets of the U.S., more than a decade after it first conceived the aerial distribution program, and faces stiffer competition from Walmart, which has also begun drone deliveries.

The incident occurred on Nov. 18 around 12:45 p.m. Central in Waco, Texas. After dropping off a package, one of Amazon’s MK30 drones was ascending out of a customer’s yard when one of its six propellers got tangled in a nearby internet cable, according to a video of the incident viewed and verified by CNBC.

The video shows the Amazon drone shearing the wire line. The drone’s motor then appeared to shut off and the aircraft landed itself, with its propellers windmilling slightly on the way down, the video shows. The drone appeared to remain in tact beyond some damage to one of its propellers.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident, a spokesperson confirmed. The National Transportation Safety Board said the agency is aware of the incident but has not opened a probe into the matter.

Amazon confirmed the incident to CNBC, saying that after clipping the internet cable, the drone performed a “safe contingent landing,” referring to the process that allows its drones to land safely in unexpected conditions.

“There were no injuries or widespread internet service outages. We’ve paid for the cable line’s repair for the customer and have apologized for the inconvenience this caused them,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC, noting that the drone had completed its package delivery.

Amazon delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

The incident comes after federal investigators last month opened a separate probe into a crash involving two of Amazon’s Prime Air drones in Arizona. The two aircrafts collided with a construction crane in Tolleson, a city west of Phoenix, prompting Amazon to temporarily halt drone deliveries in the area.

For over a decade, Amazon has been working to realize founder Jeff Bezos’ vision of drones whizzing toothpaste, books and other goods to customers’ doorsteps in 30 minutes or less. The company began drone deliveries in 2022 in College Station, Texas, and Lockeford, California.

But progress has been slowed by a mix of regulatory hurdles, missed deadlines and layoffs in 2023 that coincided with broader cost-cutting efforts by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.

The company has previously said its goal is to deliver 500 million packages by drone per year by the end of the decade.

The hexacopter-shaped MK30, the latest generation of Amazon’s Prime Air drone, is meant to be quieter, smaller and lighter than previous versions.

Amazon says the drones are equipped with a sense-and-avoid system that enables them to “detect and stay away from obstacles in the air and on the ground.” The company recommends that customers maintain “about 10 feet of open space” on their property so drones can complete deliveries

The company began drone deliveries in Waco earlier this month for customers within a certain radius of its same-day delivery site who order eligible items weighing 5 pounds or less. The drone deliveries are supposed to drop packages off in under an hour.

Amazon has brought other locations online in recent months, including Kansas City, Missouri, Pontiac, Michigan, San Antonio, Texas, and Ruskin, Florida. Amazon has also announced plans to expand drone deliveries to Richardson, Texas.

Walmart began offering drone deliveries in 2021, and currently partners with Alphabet’s Wing and venture-backed startup Zipline to make drone deliveries in a number of states, including in Texas.

WATCH: Amazon unveils satellite terminal for enterprise customers — but Starlink still dominates