With lithium demand set to surge by 2030, French direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology company Adionics believes DLE technology could be the answer to speeding up production. 

The global lithium industry has been reeling under weak prices, driven by an oversupply and stagnation in major EV markets. Regardless, the future lithium demand forecasts are pretty much the same as years before, Adionics ceo Gabriel Toffani tells Kallanish in an interview.

“In 2030, we will need maybe between 3 and 4 million tonnes per year of production, whereas today, we produce roughly 1m,” says Toffani. “Where are those three more millions going to come from? We have six years to do that. DLE could be a great booster of the production.”

Currently, lithium is mined from hard rock (such as spodumene and lepidolite) and brine. The lithium industry largely relies on conventional evaporative technology, which has a low recovery rate of roughly 40% to 60%, to extract lithium from brines. With a recovery time of around 18 months, the process is time-consuming. And due to its high water consumption, it is also environmentally degrading.

As a result, many companies have been moving to DLE – a set of emerging technologies that selectively extract lithium from brine – as a more sustainable and efficient alternative to evaporation ponds. 

It requires less land and water and can extract lithium from brines in about two weeks, BloombergNEF (BNEF) said in a report earlier this year. The report forecasts global lithium demand to nearly triple to 3m t of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) by 2030 from the current 1.2m t of LCE. At present, DLE accounts for only 140,000 t of the global LCE production. BNEF expects this number to increase to 526,000 t by decade-end.

While a relatively new technology, BNEF believes DLE is on the “cusp of commercialisation.”

A range of DLE technologies are currently in development, including adsorption, ion exchange, membrane, and solvent extraction. According to a report released by IDTechEx last month, adsorption DLE – which uses solid adsorbents to capture lithium ions – is the only commercially proven technology yet. It is used by Sunresin in China and Arcadium Lithium in Argentina. 

Arcadium has been using DLE in combination with evaporation ponds at its Hombre Muerto project for close to three decades. In July this year, a joint venture between Eramet and Tsingshan Holding Group commissioned its DLE plant in Salta Province, Argentina, with the first production planned in November 2024.  

A host of companies are also running pilot and demonstration scale plants to improve the process. The French cleantech start-up, Adionics, for instance, is developing a closed-loop liquid-liquid extraction process that claims to cause no chemical contamination or change in the brine composition. 

The solvent extraction process relies on the company’s patented liquid formulation, called Flionex, which selectively captures lithium, while leaving out other elements like boron, magnesium, potassium, and sulphates. The three-step process can achieve high lithium recovery rates of up to 98% and purity of up to 99% lithium chloride, the company claims. 

This selectivity, which avoids the need for traditional reagents such as lime and acid, is one of the key advantages of Adionics’ technology compared to existing DLE technologies, says Toffani. In contrast, other DLE technologies often need additional steps to remove the impurities.

“You have a lot of technologies that need acid to regenerate... We don’t need any. We just need our Flionex,” the ceo explains. “The selectivity makes our DLE competitive. We also have the lowest water consumption in the market. For any tonne of lithium equivalent produced, we use only 10 to 20 cubic meters per tonne of water, [which] is the best consumption you have among the DLEs.” 

Since the process does not alter the nature of the brine, the raw brine can also be re-injected into the soil, preserving brine consumption.

Early this year, the company completed 1,500 hours of lithium extraction tests at its pilot plant in SQM’s Salar de Atacama site in northern Chile. The company has now moved the pilot from Atacama to Salta in Argentina, with tests on the site slated to start in late September/early October.

The company started to make the basic engineering of its first industrial plant last December. “Now we need to see when we go to the industrial plant or not … The lithium investments are slowing down a little bit because of the price,” Toffani adds.

Nonetheless, the ceo reiterates: “We are ready today for industrialisation. In two years, we can build a full plant, able to [produce] 20,000 to 60,000 t/y.”

Adionics today has around 50 or 60 competitors, Toffani says, adding he is unsure how many of them are ready to industrialise. While there are other liquid-liquid extraction technologies, they are just extracting an ion, whereas, Adionics is the only one extracting a salt.

“We are a very unique process and I think we have the better product,” the ceo claims. “I hope we will be able to have an industrial contract in the next months to prove that on a big scale, as we did prove it in our demonstrators.”

Other DLE technology providers include California-based Lilac Solutions, which in June launched its latest generation ion exchange (IX) technology. The company claims the technology offers “unmatched” high lithium recoveries from 80% to 98%, impurity rejection, long cycle life, and high throughput. Having completed four pilot and demonstration plants, the company is now commissioning a demonstration plant in Jujuy, Argentina, and has broken ground on a pilot plant in Utah, US.

“The industry has been waiting for direct lithium extraction technology that can really rise to the challenge, and we’ve solved it with ion exchange,” Lilac ceo Raef Sully said at the time. “It works exceptionally well, and I’m excited to deploy it at commercial scale in partnership with our customers.”

Meanwhile, US-based Koch Technology Solutions (KTS), provides the so-called Li-Pro technology, that uses selective sorption to extract lithium from brine. The company claims the technology can offer over 95% lithium recovery and over 99% contaminant rejection. The technology is being used by companies such as Standard Lithium, Anson Resources, and Cornish Lithium.

While Adionics’ chief executive says the company is in “very advanced negotiation” with some of the “main players” to commercialise, challenges remain. Mining, for example, like any long-term industry, is risk-averse, and working with DLE represents an industrial risk.

“So it’s taking a very long time for mining companies to make a decision, even if you know there are DLEs working for 20 or 30 years,” Toffani adds. “Arcadium is the example; they have been producing DLE technology lithium for more than 20 years in Catamarca. Maybe the process is not the best, because it’s an old process, and they do spend a lot of water to do that. But it is working.”

Moreover, as DLE is new for communities, companies need to get approval from the communities surrounding the production sites, which Toffani says is a “long and complicated” process. Lengthy permitting processes are also another headwind, though the timeline varies by country. While in Chile it may take between 3 and 7 years, in Argentina, it is faster – although any environmental impact study will take at least 1-3 years.

“On the one side, the lithium mining industry needs DLE to make a more sustainable industry, and on the other, to speed up the production,” Toffani says. “When the mining companies start [taking] the first step, you will have two or three industrial DLEs like ours. This will speed up the process and there will be much more DLEs.”

“Of course, there will also be a consolidation in the market, I’m sure there will not be 60 companies in three or four years.” he continues. “These 60 companies do not have processes that could answer to the industrialisation needs. But these three or four [that make it] are going to be the best ones with the best processes. I do think Adionics will be among those.”

ADIONICS DLE PROCESS

SOURCE: ADIONICS