Princeton startup doubles efficiency of lithium production

These ponds currently generate around 40 per cent of the world’s lithium and most of its naturally occurring nitrate.

Now, Princeton Critical Minerals has developed a black disc with an anti-fouling coating that floats on the ponds’ surface and doubles the amount of incoming sunlight converted to thermal energy, which accelerates the evaporation process and mineral production.

In a statement, company co-founder and chief scientist Zhiyong ‘Jason’ Ren, said: “When sunlight hits a traditional evaporation pond, the solar energy is dissipated across the entire pond - the process is less than 50 per cent efficient. Our technology is over 96 per cent efficient at converting that incoming sunlight into thermal energy to speed up evaporation in a real-world environment.”

In field pilot tests at evaporation ponds in northern Chile, the team and partners Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM), found that their technology boosted evaporation rates when compared to open ponds by anywhere between 40 and 122 per cent, depending on the composition of the brine in the pond.

Because the technology raises the production efficiency of existing ponds, the PCM team said it could alleviate the need to construct additional evaporation ponds — which can sprawl to many square miles in size — to meet the world’s growing demand for lithium and other critical minerals. Similarly, any new project could be more compact, with a smaller spatial footprint and reduced environmental impact.

“In many ways, the processes for mineral extraction are the same today as they were three decades ago,” said Sean Zheng, PCM’s chief executive officer and a former Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. “Our technology could really revolutionise the conventional approach to critical minerals extraction.”