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Lithium extraction from geothermal plants in Germany? 15.06.2020 According to a media report, several companies want to produce lithium in Germany soon. This could make German battery cell factories largely independent of imports of the important raw material. What the current projects have in common is that they rely on geothermal energy.
++ This post has been updated. You can find the new info at the bottom. ++
The projects are located in the Upper Rhine, Germany's hottest region in terms of geothermal energy, according to the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR). As reported by Welt am Sonntag, energy company EnBW plans to expand a geothermal plant in Bruchsal, north of Karlsruhe, by adding an extraction plant for lithium chloride. "In the lab, it worked quite neatly," project manager Thomas Kölbel told the newspaper. "Now we're trying it with a demonstration plant."
Vulcan Energy Resources is working with energy company Pfalzwerke on a similar project. A pilot plant is to be added to the Insheim geothermal power plant this year. A commercial plant could go into operation in Insheim as early as 2022, producing 2,000 metric tons of lithium hydroxide annually - provided the pilot plant delivers appropriate results.
Geothermal plants extract hot water from deeper layers of the earth to use its heat. In the Upper Rhine Graben, the thermal water contains lithium, which is now to be filtered out of the warm water before it is fed back into the earth. According to the BGR, deep water in this region contains between 200 and 400 milligrams of lithium per liter. "Such contents are also found in some salars in South America," says BGR expert Michael Schmidt.
Horst Kreuter of Vulcan Energy Resources also told "Der Spiegel" that the lithium content is high enough. Since the plant could use electricity from geothermal energy, with electricity left over for other purposes, the CO2 footprint of this production would be "even negative." BGR expert Schmidt sees the potential of the European projects to serve "the local lithium demand for cell production to a considerable extent."
It remains to be seen whether the funding is worthwhile in Germany. Both projects could provide initial indications of this with their demonstration plants. The projects in Germany are a far cry from the scale of deals that automakers and battery cell manufacturers are currently using to secure their supplies of lithium hydroxide, with Vulcan citing 2,000 metric tons in commercial operation.
Vulcan Energy Resources' plans are also being funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) through its Inno Energy investment arm with a six-figure sum. "Through this and the three other existing European lithium mining projects, Europe could cover around 80 percent of its needs from its own sources by 2025," says Christian Müller, head of Germany at Inno Energy. However, according to Der Spiegel, the German Federal Ministry of Economics has not yet decided whether it will support the lithium projects in Germany.
Update 02.07.2020: According to its own information, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), together with the research unit of the German Technical and Scientific Association for Gas and Water at the Engler-Bunte Institute (EBI), has developed a minimally invasive process that could be used to extract thousands of tons of lithium each year from the deep waters of the Upper Rhine Graben in geothermal plants in the future, against the background described above. In the new approach, the lithium ions are filtered out of the thermal water in a first step and further concentrated in a second step until lithium can be precipitated as salt. The Grimmer-Saravia process - named after its two main developers Jens Grimmer and Florencia Saravia - has already been filed for patent.
KIT believes that there are significant amounts of lithium in the deep rock layers. "According to our knowledge, there may be up to 200 milligrams per liter. If we consistently exploit this potential, we could cover a considerable part of our needs in Germany," says Grimmer from KIT's Institute of Applied Geosciences (AGW).
Together with partners from industry, the two scientists are now in the process of developing a test plant for lithium extraction. In this first prototype, which is to be set up in a geothermal plant in the Upper Rhine Graben, a few kilograms of lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide will initially be extracted. "If the tests are successful, the construction of a large-scale plant is planned," KIT writes. It would then be possible to produce several hundred tons of lithium hydroxide per year per geothermal plant. According to current data, the potentials in the Upper Rhine Graben on the German and French side amount to several thousand tons of extractable lithium per year.
Update Dec. 16, 2020: EnBW and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, together with partners Bestec, Hydrosion, have now launched a joint project called UnLimited ("Investigations into lithium production from hot deep waters in Germany") to set up the pilot plant described above at the geothermal power plant in Bruchsal. In addition, the BMWi has decided to provide funding: The ministry will cover 2.7 million euros and thus the majority of the project costs, estimated at 3.4 million euros.
"The water drilled in Bruchsal is relatively rich in lithium, with about 150 mg of lithium per liter of water," says Professor Jochen Kolb, head of the Department of Geochemistry and Deposit Science at the KIT Institute of Applied Geosciences. While it won't supply the amount needed nationwide, he said, this domestic production opens up alternatives for supply chains and reduced environmental impact.
Currently, the partners estimate that the water throughput in Bruchsal produces and returns roughly 800 tons of lithium chloride unused per operating year. On the basis of the laboratory process described above, it is now to be demonstrated on site that sustainable and environmentally compatible extraction of the raw material is also possible on an industrial scale. Those involved estimate that with around 8,000 operating hours per year, lithium could be extracted for 20,000 e-car batteries at the geothermal plant in Bruchsal. The project will also address questions about the economic viability and sustainability of lithium extraction from deep water, and the quality of the lithium.
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