Challenges and opportunities of recovering lithium from seawater, produced water, geothermal brines, and salt lakes using conventional and emerging technologies

Energy storage plays a crucial role in the modern energy landscape, with its applications spanning from renewable energy integration to the electrification of transportation and microgrids. Lithium is a key component of lithium-ion batteries at the core of energy storage technologies. Increasing demand for lithium has challenged supply chains and required a rethinking of how we source it. This comprehensive review presents a critical and holistic assessment of the opportunities and challenges of sourcing lithium from diverse feedstocks, such as seawater, geothermal, produced water (oilfield), and salt lake brines. We assess various lithium extraction technologies (precipitation, extraction, electrochemical techniques, and membrane processes) considering these three feedstocks. A quantitative comparative analysis is conducted across all technologies, considering factors such as cost, commercial maturity, operation duration, and other relevant parameters to determine the most promising technologies for each feedstock while identifying remaining research and technological gaps. Our analysis reveals that Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) technologies, characterized by higher selectivity and lower environmental impact, demonstrate significant promise for enhancing lithium yields from geothermal brines. In contrast, membrane processes are identified as more suited for seawater and salt lake brines, offering cost-effective scalability despite challenges with selectivity and membrane fouling. Ultimately, the efficient integration of these technologies is illustrated for harvesting lithium from each unconventional resource. The analysis shows that adsorption and chemical precipitation are the commercial technologies for lithium recovery from geothermal, salt lake, and oilfield brine.