Lithium extracted from NZ geothermal liquid
Representatives of Geo40, Contact Energy and the Ngati Tahu Tribal lands Trust turned the first soil on the project in September.
A breakthrough in extracting lithium from geothermal fluid has come from Taupo company Geo40.
Battery-grade lithium sells for about US$10,000 (NZ$15,600) a tonne, Geo40 chief executive John Worth says.
Lithium, normally mined, is used for lithium ion batteries in EVs and will be provided from a $20 million commercial scale mineral extraction plant being built at Contact Energy’s Ohaaki geothermal field south of Rotorua, which Geo40 hails as a world first.
Geo40 has developed the technology to extract silica and other valuable minerals from geothermal fluid once it has been used for geothermal power generation and before the fluid is reinjected back into the underground geothermal reservoir.
It has been extracting silica for a while, but the lithium extraction step is providing new commercial potential for the firm, Stuff
reports.
“We have the technology to successfully extract lithium in an environmentally sustainable way and will now focus on commercialising lithium extraction from geothermal fluid, aimed at the fast-growing electric vehicle battery market,” Worth says.
The company received a $15 million grant from the Government’s Provincial Growth Fund in July allowing its demonstration plan to be scaled up for commercial operation.
The commercial extraction plant is expected to be commissioned by early 2021.
A lithium module would be added to the existing demonstration plant and commercial quantities of battery-grade lithium could be sold in 12 to 18 months.
Worth says geothermal fluid has already done the hard work of dissolving lithium from the rock, and if New Zealand gets the process right he believes it will have a major impact globally.
Join the conversation