
Lithium recovery from seawater using dialysis with a lithium ionic SC (2015) - xoa
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0011916414006560
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xoa
An more general overview of possible approaches (not just applying to lithium)
is also worth a read, "Mining valuable minerals from seawater: a critical
review" [1].

Approaches to oceanic mineral extraction and R&D towards making it more
economically viable should be of increasing interest given the changing
mineral demands imposed by vehicle electrification and shifting generation. I
think this is an area that should be getting a significant amount of long
baseline R&D from both government and industry right now. Viable seawater
recovery would not merely have major economic and environmental implications,
it could have dramatic geopolitical effects too by diversifying potential key
mineral inputs from limited land based point sources to "anywhere with ocean
access", just as solar and vehicle electrification will decentralize energy
markets, so countries should consider it not just a good economic
hedge/planning but an area with strategic implications.

Worth remembering also that "viable" is a shifting baseline that depends on
economic demand, just as it is with anything else (like oil for example). It
doesn't necessarily have to ever be cheaper then the cheapest concentrated
mineral source if value rises enough, and merely having viable techniques that
could in principle be deployed may help set a price ceiling and limit the
geopolitics that could be played.

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1:
[http://pubs.rsc.org/-/content/articlehtml/2017/ew/c6ew00268d...](http://pubs.rsc.org/-/content/articlehtml/2017/ew/c6ew00268d?page=search)

