New research into lithium mining in the “Lithium Triangle” of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia — source of more than half of the world’s lithium resources — shows that the commonly accepted models used to estimate how much water is available for lithium extraction and what the environmental effects may be are off by more than an order of magnitude.
New research into lithium mining in the “Lithium Triangle” of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia — source of more than half of the world’s lithium resources — shows that the commonly accepted models used to estimate how much water is available for lithium extraction and what the environmental effects may be are off by more than an order of magnitude. The paper, published in Communications Earth and Environment, reveals that there is far less water available than previously thought. With demand for the mineral, which is critical for batteries powering the green transition, projected to increase 40-fold in the coming decades, the research suggests local communities, regulators and the lithium mining industry must quickly collaborate to bring their water usage within sustainable limits.
Lithium, says David Boutt, professor of geosciences at UMass Amherst the paper’s senior author, is a strange element. It’s the lightest of the metals, but it doesn’t like to be in a solid form. Lithium tends to occur in layers of volcanic ash, but it reacts quickly with water. When rain or snowmelt moves through the ash layers, lithium leaches into the groundwater, moving downhill until it settles in a flat basin where it remains in solution as a briny mix of water and lithium. Because this brine is very dense, it settles beneath pockets of fresh surface water, which lie on top of the lithium-rich fluid below, forming lagoons.
Read More: University of Massachusetts Amherst
An abandoned road and brine transitional pool at the margin of the Salar de Atacama Halite Nucleus. (Photo Credit: UMass Amherst)
