Lithium is in great demand as it powers lithium-ion batteries, which have become an integral part of everyday life - from powering computers, vehicles and so much more. Unfortunately, lithium has limited availability, as it’s primarily commercially produced in few countries like Australia or Bolivia. The U.S. DOE is charging the nation’s brightest to find ways to mine lithium domestically to position the country for self-sufficiency in using lithium as an energy storage material. Xerion Advanced Battery Corp. (Xerion), in partnership with a team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been awarded the top prize in the inaugural American-Made Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize by the U.S. Department of Energy.  The prize, which includes $1 million in funding from the Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO), will accelerate Xerion’s plans to commercialize its innovative, first-of-its-kind ceramic redox membrane technology for the production of lithium hydroxide (LiOH) from geothermal brine. Xerion demonstrated that its patented nanostructured ceramic redox membrane can efficiently extract lithium from raw geothermal brines with low lithium concentrations, such as those found in California’s Salton Sea region, and produce high-quality aqueous lithium hydroxide. This lithium hydroxide can be used directly as a battery feedstock to synthesize cathodes in a single step using Xerion’s DirectPlate™ molten salt electroplating process; converted to a lithium metal anode for use in solid-state batteries; or fed into the current conventional cathode production process. Xerion’s novel approach to lithium extraction from geothermal brine offers substantial advantages over methods in use today related to selective extraction of lithium, material stability, and environmental impact. This separation technology is a significant extension of Xerion’s advanced dense cathode innovation.

• Contributed to the team won $1M DOE American-Made Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize