Australian lithium technology firm ElectraLith recently received an $A2.9mn ($2.1mn) government grant to fund it's direct lithium extraction technology. Chief executive Charlie McGill spoke to Argus about the challenges of water scarcity and building lithium processing capacity outside China. Edited highlights follow:
Your latest funding award is focused on refining rather than extraction. What does the pilot involve?
The pilot will be deployed at a customer's operation in Western Australia and is designed to demonstrate the refining side of our technology. We'll take an intermediate spodumene-derived stream and convert it into battery-grade lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate.
What is important to understand is that our broader system combines extraction and refining, but the refining stage can also operate independently. That's why this pilot is valuable. It lets us prove that part of the flowsheet in a commercial setting while we continue advancing integrated opportunities elsewhere.
Beyond Australia, we're progressing discussions around pilot programmes in Latin America, most likely Chile, as well as a number of opportunities in the US that we hope to advance over the next six to 12 months.
Where do you think ElectraLith's competitive advantage lies?
At its core, the company is an intellectual property business rather than a manufacturing business.
The value does not come from building boxes or producing membranes ourselves. It comes from the way we configure existing technologies and use electrodialysis to extract and refine lithium without consuming water or chemicals within the process itself.
One lesson we've learnt is that not every part of a system needs to be developed in-house. We've partnered with membrane suppliers because they are experts in membranes, just as we're focused on developing the extraction and refining technology. That approach allows us to move faster and avoid taking on unnecessary capital and technical risk.
How important is water scarcity to the future of lithium development?
I think water is becoming one of the defining issues for parts of the industry, particularly in regions where communities are already concerned about competing demands on scarce resources.
The obvious example is Chile's Atacama desert, where water availability is under constant scrutiny, but there are also parts of North America where the same pressures exist. In those regions, reducing water use is not simply an environmental benefit. It can influence whether a project is accepted by local communities and ultimately whether it gets built.
At the same time, the advantage is not limited to water-stressed assets. Removing water and chemicals also removes a large component of operating costs. So even where water is plentiful, there is still a strong economic case for simplifying the process.
You've previously suggested costs could be around half that of your competitors. Can you say more?
As with most things in lithium, it depends on the resource.
For a good-quality brine, we generally think about costs around $2,500/t, plus or minus roughly 20pc. Some Chilean brines can perform materially better because lithium concentrations are high and power costs can be relatively favourable. At the other end of the spectrum, lower-grade resources or locations with expensive electricity will inevitably sit above that range.
What matters more than the headline number is understanding that electricity and resource quality are usually the biggest cost drivers.
What is the biggest challenge facing direct lithium extraction today?
The industry has largely moved beyond proving that lithium can be extracted in different ways. The challenge now is proving that those technologies can operate reliably at scale.
There are a number of promising approaches, including adsorption, ion exchange, solvent extraction and electrochemical systems such as ours. What separates them is not necessarily pilot-scale performance, but whether they can be deployed repeatedly across different resources and continue operating efficiently over long periods.
That is why the next wave of pilot projects is so important. The sector remains relatively young and there is still no clear incumbent technology.
Why are governments increasingly focused on refining?
A large share of global lithium refining still takes place in China, even though lithium production is spread across countries such as Australia, Chile and Argentina.
As a result, many governments have realised that mining alone does not create a complete supply chain. If you want domestic battery materials industries, you also need refining capacity and the technical expertise that comes with it.
Five years ago the industry spent much of its time discussing resources. Increasingly the discussion is shifting towards processing, refining and qualification because those are the areas where some of the biggest bottlenecks now exist.
Where should governments direct support if they want more lithium supply?
Refining would be at the top of the list.
Recycling has an important future role, but there simply are not enough end-of-life batteries available today for it to solve the industry's near-term supply challenge. In the meantime, governments that want more local lithium processing need to help projects move from pilot scale to commercial operation.
Funding can play a role in that, but so can faster permitting and reducing barriers that slow the deployment of new refining capacity.
