In field trials, the device boosted evaporation rates by 40 percent to 122 percent, depending on the brine’s composition.
South America’s lithium triangle is home to vast evaporation ponds that quietly produce lithium, often called white gold, which powers our phones, electric cars, and batteries.These ponds, fed by mineral-rich brines, supply nearly 40% of the world’s lithium and most of its naturally occurring nitrate.
The method uses sunlight to evaporate water, slowly leaving valuable minerals behind, but it’s inefficient. It takes up huge areas of land and can take months to extract usable lithium.A startup born out of Princeton University wants to change that. A new breakthrough by Princeton Critical Minerals has developed a black, disc-like structure that floats on the surface of brine ponds. Nicknamed the “artificial lily pad,” this simple device is coated with a proprietary anti-fouling material and designed to supercharge the evaporation process and mineral production by more effectively trapping and converting sunlight into heat.Boosting evaporation rates“Traditional ponds waste more than half the sunlight they receive,” said Zhiyong ‘Jason’ Ren, co-founder and chief scientist at Princeton Critical Minerals.“Our technology captures over 96% of that solar energy and channels it into accelerating the evaporation process.”The Princeton startup partnered with lithium giant Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile to test the lily pads. In field trials, the device boosted evaporation rates by 40 percent to 122 percent, depending on the brine’s composition.The device works on the principle of interfacial solar evaporation , a method that heats the water’s surface rather than its depths, reducing energy loss and water seepage.Made from special cellulose fibers and carbon coatings, the lily pad speeds up evaporation and keeps salt from piling up. It also separates the minerals as they form, helping recover lithium more efficiently.Smaller footprint, bigger impactThe impact of this breakthrough goes far beyond just speed. As the innovation increases the production efficiency of existing evaporation ponds, it would reduce the need to construct new ones. That’s a big win for places like Chile’s Atacama Desert, where lithium production often clashes with delicate ecosystems and limited water supplies.Unlike hard rock mining, which is energy-hungry and carbon-heavy, extracting lithium from brine has long been considered the cleaner option.The picture, however, gets murkier if massive land use and water stress are factored in. The new technology could offer a sustainable alternative to brine extraction.The approach may even help sidestep the need for mechanical methods like vapor compression or high-pressure filtration, which guzzle electricity and are tough to scale.Sean Zheng, PCM’s chief executive officer and a former Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, said that the startup is now aiming to mass manufacture the lily pads and explore commercial deployment globally.“In many ways, the processes for mineral extraction are the same today as they were three decades ago. Our technology could really revolutionize the conventional approach to critical minerals extraction.”Titled “Interfacial solar evaporation for sustainable brine mining”, the innovation has been published in the journal Nature Water.
Critical Minerals Evaporation Ponds Green Innovation Lithium Brine Lithium Extraction Princeton University Solar Energy SQM Sustainable Mining
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