Albemarle develops new process to increase lithium production by 30%

Albemarle Corp, the world's largest lithium producer, announced a process detail on Tuesday, which may increase the company's lithium production in Chile by nearly a third, and said it is working to reduce the impact of precipitation on the evaporation pool.

If these two measures succeed, it will help the company to further consolidate its lithium business in the Atacama Desert in Chile, which contains a large amount of this white metal used to make electric car batteries.

A month ago, the company announced that it had developed a process that would eliminate the need to mine more brine from the world ’s driest Atacama desert, increasing Chile ’s lithium output by 30%. The company described the process in detail on Tuesday, and it involves industry standards for the use of a series of evaporation ponds.

Because the dried salt in each evaporator usually contains some lithium molecules. Albemarle said that re-injecting these salts into the evaporator, through successive evaporation steps, will effectively increase the lithium concentration.

David Ryan, the company's director of strategy and investor relations, proposed at the "Fastmarkets Lithium Supply and Market Conference" in San Diego, "This technology we are researching and investing is essentially reprocessing certain lithium-containing salts."

In view of the importance of the region in meeting the rising global demand for lithium, the true status of Atacama's freshwater and saltwater supply has become the focus of observers in the lithium industry.

Currently, Albemarle's recovery efficiency in the Atacama area is only 50%, which means that only half of the lithium can be extracted from the brine in the area.

Ellen Lenny-Pessagno, the company's regional manager in Chile, said Albemarle has been considering establishing partnerships with technology companies to increase lithium output in Chile.