Lithium from the Upper Rhine - sustainable and promising?

Lithium is a light metal that occurs in solid rock or in groundwater containing lithium. The raw material is used in the production of rechargeable batteries, such as lithium-ion batteries. Until now, Germany has met its demand exclusively from imports, particularly from South America, where not only the raw material is found, but also the producers are located.

However, lithium extraction there is also very harmful to the environment, as the energy and water consumption for extracting the raw material is extremely high. Economic independence has therefore been sought for a long time. Since lithium deposits were finally discovered in some European countries - including Germany - a handful of companies have been developing processes for the environmentally friendly extraction of the raw material.

Lithium from the Upper Rhine Plain

The Upper Rhine Plain is one of the regions in Europe where lithium is found. Vulcan Energie, a company from Landau, has set up a lithium extraction optimization plant (LEOP) there to work on extracting the raw material. The advantage: thermal water for generating electricity and heat is already being extracted at the site from a depth of up to three and a half kilometers.

Vulcan Energie can use this infrastructure for lithium extraction by filtering the lithium out of the water. The water is then pumped back into the depths. The process is therefore much more environmentally friendly than known methods on other continents. According to the company, an efficiency of over 90% (up to 95%) has been achieved in the LEOP when extracting the lithium - a result of three years of research in laboratories and pilot plants.

What happens next?

The Vulcan Energie plant started producing lithium chloride in April 2024. The company has thus successfully demonstrated that a sustainable method of direct lithium extraction is feasible. The task now is to process the extracted lithium chloride into battery-ready lithium hydroxide monohydrate (LHM).

However, this requires support: a lithium electrolysis optimization plant is currently in the final stages of completion in Frankfurt am Main. These plants act as precursors for commercial plants that are aiming for an annual capacity of 24,000 LHM. Experts from KIT's Institute for Applied Geosciences predict that this could theoretically cover two to twelve percent of Germany's annual lithium demand. This is an important step towards being able to supply the European battery industry with lithium in the future.

Sources: next-mobility.de, Susanne Braun, 29.04.2024
br.de, 27.04.2024

Image: Kumpan Electric on Unsplash