{"id":140338,"date":"2024-09-23T14:23:42","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T14:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/23\/a-materials-scientist-seeks-to-extract-lithium-from-untapped-sources\/"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:23:42","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T14:23:42","slug":"a-materials-scientist-seeks-to-extract-lithium-from-untapped-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/23\/a-materials-scientist-seeks-to-extract-lithium-from-untapped-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"A materials scientist seeks to extract lithium from untapped sources"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><\/div> \r\n<br><div data-component=\"video-embed\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\n\n\n<p>Electric vehicles promise to help wean us off of fossil fuels, but they introduce a new problem: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/search-new-geologic-sources-lithium-could-power-clean-future\">how to get enough of the lithium<\/a> that EV batteries require (<em>SN: 5\/7\/19<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Materials scientist Chong Liu of the University of Chicago has some ideas. Existing technology can extract lithium only from sources with highly concentrated ions, like hard rocks or underground deposits of salty water called brines. Not only will those sources not be enough to meet demand, but mining them also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/lithium-mining-flamingo-technology-climate-change\">comes with environmental consequences<\/a> (<em>SN: 3\/15\/22<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n<aside class=\"sn-conversion rich-text rich-text--with-sidebar\">\n<style><![CDATA[\n.email-conversion {\n  border: 1px solid #ffcccb;\n  color: white;\n  margin-top: 50px;\n  background-image: url(\"\/wp-content\/themes\/sciencenews\/client\/src\/images\/cta-module@2x.jpg\");\n  padding: 20px;\n  clear: both;\n}\n\n]]><\/style>\n\n\n\n                        <style class=\"is-layout-flow 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She\u2019s eyeing brines left over from geothermal and desalination processes, wastewater from fracking or even seawater, which could someday provide a huge supply of lithium \u2014 if it can be tapped. A big challenge, though, is that seawater has a sodium-to-lithium ratio of roughly 20,000-to-1, nowhere near the current sources that have ratios in the range of hundreds-to-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pulling lithium ions from low-concentration solutions for commercial use will require a lot more research, Liu says. But her efforts have made huge strides toward more efficient extraction of resources, says University of Chicago molecular engineer Matthew Tirrell, who brought Liu on as an assistant professor in 2018. And it\u2019s not just lithium extraction: \u201cHer work is setting the stage for other processes that involve ions moving in porous, confined spaces,\u201d he says, with future applications ranging from finding ways to speed up chemical reactions to potentially treating patients with mercury or lead poisoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Selecting for lithium<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The method that Liu is working with \u2014 called electrochemical intercalation \u2014 has only recently been used for extracting resources. First, the researchers dunk a material full of ion-sized passageways into briny water. The lithium ions in the water enter the material\u2019s lattice of channels and can be captured there. But briny water also contains sodium ions, among others, which push their way into those channels, reducing the amount of lithium that can be taken up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Liu started hunting for an ideal dunking material around 2016 during her postdoctoral work at Stanford University. She knew it was important to get it right: \u201cThis material\u2019s property will determine how much selectivity [for lithium] we can get, and what source water we can use,\u201d Liu says. The better the selectivity, the more lithium captured. So she scoured the scientific literature for a material that fit the bill. It needed to be stable in water and maintain its structure even when stuffed with ions.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default has-alignleft\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"caption wp-caption-3143138\">When iron phosphate is placed in briny water, lithium ions (green spheres) enter the channels of the iron phosphate, which consist of phosphorus monoxide (blue) and ferrous oxide (yellow).<\/span><span class=\"credit wp-credit-3143138\">G. Yan <i data-stringify-type=\"italic\">et al<\/i>\/<i data-stringify-type=\"italic\">PNAS<\/i> 2024 (<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CC BY-NC-ND<\/a>)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>She eventually settled on <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.joule.2020.05.017\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">iron phosphate<\/a>. The oxygen in the iron phosphate bonds more easily with lithium than with the competing sodium ions. The larger sodium ions can expand the channels, but the lithium-oxygen bonds keep the channels small and receptive to more lithium. Once the material is full of ions, it is moved to freshwater where the researchers apply electric currents to expel the ions. Then they add a hydroxide, which combines with the lithium to form solid lithium hydroxide, the raw material used in EV batteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The amount of lithium that iron phosphate can currently extract is \u201cspectacular,\u201d says physicist Steven Chu of Stanford University. Chu, former U.S. Secretary of Energy, worked with Liu during her postdoctoral research. \u201cHaving done that, you can rest on your laurels and say, \u2018That\u2019s great.\u2019 But she\u2019s also driven [to ask], \u2018Is it going to be practical?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In her lab in Chicago, Liu has been striving to make the material more efficient. Her team studies how the lithium and sodium ions enter the material\u2019s holes, in what order and how they interact inside the material. By better understanding the ions\u2019 behavior, Liu says, the team can improve the material\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Mining for understanding<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>Liu\u2019s team is also <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1126\/sciadv.adh1330\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">developing a new method<\/a> for separating rare earth elements, which she says is \u201cactually harder\u201d than lithium extraction. These 17 elements are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/rare-earth-elements-properties-technology\">essential for modern technologies<\/a>, including wind turbines and smartphones (<em>SN: 1\/16\/23<\/em>). But often found together, they need to be separated \u2014 a difficult task because of their similar size and chemistry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Besides these two methods, much of the lab\u2019s work focuses on basic materials science. \u201cWe just accumulate more and more knowledge, so then we can start to predict things,\u201d she says. That\u2019s how she landed on iron phosphate: After a lot of research, it was the first material that the team tried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s this deep understanding that makes Liu stand out, Chu says. There is \u201ca small number of people you want to pay attention to\u201d because they frequently come up with clever, new approaches, he says, \u201cand she\u2019s one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Liu didn\u2019t always dream of being a materials scientist, or even a professor. But during her Ph.D. at Stanford, she realized that she loved the research environment. \u201cI really enjoy solving the puzzle,\u201d she says. \u201cThat made me decide that probably I want to do this job for a lifetime. It\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the weekends, she has fun of a different sort: playing Legos or riding bikes with her kids. She\u2019s started to teach her son about the solar system and photosynthesis. \u201cWe are trying to see whether we just can keep the fun,\u201d she says, \u201cbut sneak in a little bit of the science.\u201d<a id=\"_msocom_1\"\/><\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n<br>\r\n<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/chong-liu-lithium-ev-batteries\">Source link <\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Electric vehicles promise to help wean us off of fossil fuels, but they introduce a new problem: how to get enough of the lithium that EV batteries require (SN: 5\/7\/19). Materials scientist Chong Liu of the University of Chicago has some ideas. Existing technology can extract lithium only from sources with highly concentrated ions, like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/sn10_chong-liu_inline.jpg?resize=680%2C783&ssl=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[16617,17586,25105,1157,5113,8322,17118],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140338"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140340,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140338\/revisions\/140340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}