LKE towards TOP-5, page-6020

Dr. John Burba worked with Dow and FMC on the development of DLE since the 1980s. And with more than 70 patents to his name, he´s sometimes dubbed the “godfather of lithium”. In a presentation for his DLE start-up International Battery Metals, Burba writes:

“Over the last decade, there has been a lot of hype and excitement over new and novel technologies that will solve this problem. Unfortunately, most of these technologies will never be commercial. Designing a process to selectively extract lithium from complex saturated brines is stunningly difficult. Designing one that can be profitable is much more difficult. Most of these projects are either reworks of old ideas that were tried and failed in the 1980s or new concepts with marginal operational bases. What works in the lab does not always work at scale.”

Please note the last sentence