Ann: Acquisition of Canada's Highest Grade Lithium Brine Resource, page-240

Taken to its logical conclusion, DLE could work on seawater. In fact, that’s what has already been done at the Red Sea shore of Saudi Arabia. What are the names of the scientists who accomplished it? I don’t think you will find them Friday at the mosque: Zhen Li, Chunyang Li, Xiaowei Liu, Li Cao, Peipei Li, Ruicong Wei, Xiang Li, Dong Guo, Kuo-Wei Huang and Zhiping Lai.

https://www.mining-technology.com/news/industry-news/lithium-seawater-extraction-research-paper-concetration-battery/

An Israeli company has proposed to Arizona that it build a billion-dollar desalination plant on the Sea of Cortes, just south of the state. Private funds would build it but the state would have to agree to buy the water, at a cost much higher than current prices for groundwater or river water. If desalination infrastructure is already in place, how much more does it cost to extract lithium and other commodities, like chlorine and hydrogen? Most of the world’s lithium is in the ocean. Most of the world’s nickel and cobalt, is not. Do your own research and draw your own conclusions.