Argentina, Australia, China and Chile are the four countries that have large lithium reserves ranging from 2 million to 7.5 million metric tons. Other countries do have but not much exploration work has been carried out. It is expected that demand for lithium carbonate equivalent will grow beyond 1.8 million tonnes from the current 200 00 tonnes. Apart from lithium bearing minerals, focus should be on geothermal resources. Water rock interaction between the circulating fluids and rocks extract sizable quantities of lithium that can be extracted. Besides this large mine-waste contain easily extractable lithium that has not attracted the attention of the investors. If the renewable industry has to grow then this metals has to come from renewable energy source itself…geothermal. Identification of sources, extraction methods are the future research areas that institutes and industries should follow. A large number of geothermal provinces do have lithium in extractable quantitates and even if the metal is in traces still there are procedures to extract it in a economical way. This may bring down the cost. Look for my article that will soon appear in the journals.
24
Oct
18