potential lithium technology disruption, page-5

While the processing time sounds impressive (1 day), well...., I am not sure if the chemistry and purity of the extracted lithium is suitable for batteries without further beneficiation.

From the link you provided:

As reported by Dr. Preston McEachern of PurLucid:

• Starting EBD with Li concentration of 87 milligrams per litre
• Final recovery of Li was 34.8 mg/l or 40%
• Li was lost in the initial softening of the EBD (18%) when approximately 20% of the fluid mass is lost due to removal of silica and other solids
• 1% of the Li was lost in the NaCl (sodium chloride) removal step
• 16% of the Li was lost in the magnesium removal step
• 4% of Li was lost in the CaCl2 (calcium chloride) removal step
• 21% of the total Li remained in the final brine; this portion of lithium has a high probability of recovery by further reaction or during a second pass
• Li was crystallized as lithium carbonate
• Other primary recoveries of minerals in total were 83% and calcium 100%
• The final brine still contained high concentrations of sodium, potassium and boron indicating where optimization will focus on;
• Additional applicable data were collected for the potential extraction of boron, bromine, magnesium and potassium
• The treatment process removed all suspended solids, 99.97% of the hydrocarbons and reduced scale-forming ions such as silica to levels suitable for reuse in steam-generating processes.

My questions is, what is the purity? Their numbers suggest a residual 17% of contaminant minerals in their lithium, e.g. the obnoxious magnesium.

I like the environmental angle of this process. Something worth keeping an eye on.