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Lithium
——
Lee A. Groat
L
ithium (from the Ancient Greek lithos or ‘stone’) is the third element on the
periodic table. It contains just three protons, three electrons and four neutrons,
and was one of the first elements (along with hydrogen and helium) created when
the universe formed almost fourteen billion years ago in the Big Bang. The element,
abbreviated chemically as Li, was discovered in 1817 by the Swedish chemist Johan
August Arfwedson, and its basic chemical properties are now well known. Pure metallic
lithium is silvery-white and soft enough to be cut with a knife. It is the least dense of
all metals and can float on water. Like all so-called alkali metals, including sodium
and potassium, lithium is highly reactive and flammable and must be stored under an
inert atmosphere without oxygen or with a hydrocarbon coating, such as petroleum
jelly. Over the past two centuries since its discovery, lithium has found its way into a
wide range of applications, from metal alloys used in airplanes, trains and bicycles,
to ceramics, lubricants and fuel for nuclear weapons. It has also been used in some
medical applications, most notably in the treatment of bipolar disorder. Despite its
widespread use, most people rarely think about lithium, and just a few years ago, few,
if any, would have suggested that it might hold the key to the future energy transition.
The importance of lithium for renewable energy and electric transportation dates
to the early 1990s, when Sony commercialized re-chargeable lithium-ion batteries.
©2024 Lee A. Groat, CC BY-NC 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0373.25
Back then, about 10,000 metric tons of lithium were mined annually around the
world. With the widespread adoption of mobile electronic devices over the subsequent
quarter century, lithium production increased about ten-fold, reaching slightly more
than 100,000 metric tons by 2021. Much of this increase has occurred in recent years;
over the past decade alone, lithium production has nearly quadrupled, and in just
one year, between 2021 and 2022, production jumped by 30%.1 This sharp rise in
lithium production has been triggered by the rapid expansion of rechargeable lithium
batteries used for electric vehicles (about ten kilograms of lithium per vehicle), portable
electronic devices and grid storage applications.2 As expected, surging demand is
driving significant price increases, with a three-fold jump in lithium price just between
2021 to 2022. The situation is expected to get significantly worse, as the International
Energy Agency predicts a large (forty-fold) increase in global lithium demand by
2040.3 Today, lithium is now considered as one of the ‘critical minerals’ essential for
the transition to renewable energy and green technologies. With our growing reliance
on this metal, important questions are now being raised about how and from where
we can supply enough lithium to meet society’s future needs.
C
ompared to many other metals, lithium is not particularly scarce. It is the twenty-
fifth most abundant element in Earth’s crust, with about one hundred million
metric tons present at concentrations ranging from twenty to seventy milligrams (mg)
per kilogram (kg) of rock. There are additional large sources of lithium in the oceans,
with seawater concentrations ranging from about 0.14–0.25 mg per kg, and up to 7
mg per kg near hydrothermal vents. Yet, despite the high abundance of lithium, its
extraction into useful forms is surprisingly challenging. The metal does not occur freely
in nature (as is the case for some forms of mined copper, gold and other elements), but
rather exists trapped in various hard rock minerals, or as salts in underground brines.
Lithium-containing minerals are rich in silicate, and have names like spodumene,
lepidolite, amblygonite and eucryptite, which evoke a superhero fantasy world. These
minerals occur in a rare type of rock called pegmatite that is derived from cooling
molten lava often associated with granite. When waters separate from the cooling
182 Heavy Metal
magma in the late stages of crystallization, various elements are enriched in the liquid
phase, including lithium, niobium, tantalum, tin, cesium and rare-earth elements
(REEs). These mineral-rich fluids are incorporated into pegmatite crystals, which have
been called ‘scientific wonders’,4 due to their enormous grain-sizes. In extreme cases,
such as the pegmatites found in the Black Hills of South Dakota, individual crystals can
reach more than ten meters in length, forming at a rate of up to one to ten meters per
day5—stunningly fast relative to most geological processes. These enormous crystals
are not only a rich source of critical minerals, but also of quartz, feldspars and micas
for industrial uses, as well as many of the world’s finest gem and mineral specimens,
including varieties of beryl, topaz and tourmaline.
Lithium minerals are recovered from pegmatites using standard hard-rock
mining techniques, similar to those used for other metals such as copper. This involves
extracting an ore through drilling and blasting, followed by crushing and chemical
processing to concentrate the metal into a useful form. This may sound simple, but it
is challenging, particularly for lithium. From a chemical perspective, lithium minerals
are very stable, so that large amounts of energy are needed to extract the metal from
host minerals. Current approaches typically only recover about 60–70% of lithium
from mined rocks. The main forms of lithium obtained from pegmatites are lithium
oxide (Li2O), and lithium hydroxide (LiOH). These chemical species are the ones used
in batteries, and this has created continued demand for rock-based lithium sources.
Another important source of lithium comes from brine pools, where it can
accumulate to high concentrations as lithium carbonate salt (Li2CO3). The largest
accumulation of brine lithium occurs in a region known as the ‘Lithium Triangle’,
which stretches across a large expanse of the high Atacama Desert in Chile, Bolivia
and Argentina.6 This region contains more than half of the known global reserves
of lithium. It also contains unique and fragile ecosystems, including Chile’s Salar de
Atacama, Argentina’s Salar de Arizaro and Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, which has been
designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Relative to rock-based sources of lithium, extraction of the element from brines is
relatively simple; the brines are exposed to the hot desert sun, and the concentration
Lithium 183
of salts increases as water evaporates. During this process, various salts crystallize at
different times as the solution becomes more concentrated. Lithium is among the first
elements to precipitate, along with manganese, potassium and others. These salts are
filtered out of the ponds, and the residual liquid pumped into a new evaporation pond,
repeating the process until the brine attains a lithium content of about 6%, after twelve
to eighteen months.7 Lithium carbonate is then extracted from the concentrated brine,
with a typical recovery rate of about 50% or higher. Proponents of this approach point
out that the process is largely based on renewable energy (sunshine), and is much
more energy efficient than rock-based lithium mining, which requires significant
energy for drilling, blasting and crushing. On the other hand, the extraction of lithium
from brines is extremely water intensive; an estimated 1.9 million liters of water are
used to produce each metric ton of lithium,8 and all this water is lost to evaporation.9
The high dependence on water is particularly problematic in the desert regions where
these operations take place. The Atacama Desert is the driest place on Earth; it receives
about one millimeter of precipitation each year, and some areas have not seen any
rain in several centuries.
A
s global demand for lithium soars, countries and corporations around the world
are scrambling to identify reliable sources of this element. In addition to South
America’s Lithium Triangle, other countries with notable lithium resources include the
United States (~12%), Australia (~8%) and China (~7%).10 At present, lithium production
remains highly concentrated in a few locations. In 2022, approximately 98% of the
global lithium supply came from just fifteen sites; six mines in Australia (~47%), two
brine operations in Chile (~30%), three mineral and two brine operations in China
(~15%), and two brine operations in Argentina (4.8%).11 The world’s largest lithium mine,
Greenbushes in Western Australia, produced 22,000 metric tons of lithium in 2021,
representing more than 20% of global production that year.12
Seeking to decrease their dependence on foreign sources of lithium, nations have
sought to discover and exploit their own lithium. In 2022, mineral-based lithium
sources were in various stages of development or exploration in Australia, Austria,
184 Heavy Metal
Brazil, Canada, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Czech Republic,
Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Peru,
Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, the US and Zimbabwe. In 2022, brine-based
lithium sources were in various stages of development or exploration in Argentina,
Bolivia, Chile, China and the US.13 Other sources of lithium are also being explored.
These include the leachates of geothermal wells, where the lithium can be separated
by simple filtration, and lithium-containing clays, which are in various stages of
development or exploration in Mexico and the US.14 In addition, electrical methods
have been proposed to extract lithium compounds from seawater.15 Between all these
sources, it is likely that the world will be able to meet its future demands for lithium,
provided that new sources can be brought into production quickly. This contrasts
sharply with the situation for copper, where a clear supply gap is expected to develop
over the next two decades.16
Even if there is enough lithium to supply the world’s demands, the uneven
distribution of current resources sets up potential for geopolitical rivalry. Competition
for battery production capacity is emerging as a key element in the race to dominate
global electrical vehicle production. China, in particular, has made significant
investments to position itself as a leader in this race.17 At present, Chinese companies
dominate global lithium refining, even though China has only 7% of world lithium
resources.18 To secure additional primary resources, Chinese companies have been
investing in lithium mines throughout the developing world, spending about 4.5
billion dollars acquiring stakes in twenty lithium mines, mostly in Latin America and
Africa.19 Chinese-controlled mines are projected to account for 32% of global lithium
supply by 2025, up from 24% in 2022.20 In response to China’s growing dominance of
the global lithium market, Western nations have put limits on Chinese ownership of
their own lithium mines, favoring domestic control instead.
Other political factors are beginning to significantly influence lithium production.
In the South American Lithium Triangle, production has suffered at the hands of
governments seeking greater control. In Bolivia, for example, lithium mining was
nationalized in 2008, when the government created a state-owned lithium company,
Lithium 185
which spent nearly a billion dollars building a factory and other infrastructure. Nearly
a decade after the factory opened in 2013, production remains virtually non-existent.
In 2021, the state-owned mine produced 540 metric tons of lithium carbonate,
representing less than two days of production from a typical mine in Chile.21 Quite
remarkably, the Bolivian electrical vehicle (EV) start-up firm, Quantum, imports
lithium from China for its batteries.22 In Chile, tight regulatory control over lithium
resources has prevented foreign companies from investing in the industry, resulting
in loss of market share to Australia and neighboring Argentina. By 2027, Chile’s share
of the global supply is expected to fall to about 15%, down from about 30% in 2022.23
The situation was exacerbated in April 2023, when Chilean President Gabriel Boric
announced plans to create a state-owned company to develop the country’s lithium
resources, leading to lower share prices for some of the world’s biggest lithium mining
companies. This proposal still needs to be approved by Chile’s Congress.24 Relative
to Bolivia and Chile, lithium production in Argentina appears to be on a significant
upward trajectory, with increased private investment, and plans develop up to nineteen
lithium mines, with anticipated annual production of 230,000 metric tons by 2031.25
T
he expansion of global lithium production may ultimately be limited more by
environmental and social factors than by our ability to locate and access this metal.
When present in high environmental concentrations, lithium can pose significant
risks to both humans and wildlife. This element can be readily taken up across cell
membranes, interfering with the biological functions of other ions, such as sodium
and magnesium.26 Breathing low concentrations of lithium dust or lithium compounds
can irritate the nose and throat, while higher exposure can lead to the accumulation of
fluid in the lungs. Potential environmental impacts of mineral lithium mining include
habitat degradation, water pollution and the adverse effects of mining wastes from the
chemicals needed to extract the lithium from rocks.27 Though some have argued that
extracting lithium from brines is more environmentally friendly due to its reliance on
renewable energy, this neglects the significant impacts on water use in arid regions. In
Chile’s Salar de Atacama, for example, mining activities consume 64% of the region’s
186 Heavy Metal
water, negatively affecting local farmers who grow quinoa and herd llamas.28 There
are also significant concerns about the potential leakage of toxic chemicals from the
evaporation ponds into the water supply. These chemicals include the waste products
that are filtered out from brine concentrates, which may contain large amounts of
magnesium, alkaline calcium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid.
In the face of such environmental impacts, there has been growing resistance to
lithium mining in many countries. In May 2016, hundreds of protesters threw dead
fish into the streets of Tagong, in southwestern China. They were protesting a chemical
leak from the Ganzizhou Rongda Lithium Mine, the third in seven years, which killed
masses of fish in the Liqi River.29 In Chile, local communities have clashed with mining
companies over enormous piles of discarded salts, and canals filled with contaminated
water.30 In 2022, when the Chilean government awarded a lithium mining contract to
Chinese EV giant BYD Company, local Indigenous communities demanded that the
contract be canceled over concern about impacts on local water supplies. The Chilean
Supreme Court sided with the protestors, canceling the contract on the basis that the
government had failed to adequately consult Indigenous communities.31 Increasingly,
the need to achieve free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), as stipulated under the
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), is being
held up as a standard for lithium mining operations. In 2021, Indigenous protestors
occupied a proposed lithium clay mining site at Thacker Pass, Nevada, arguing that
they had not been adequately consulted in the face of significant impacts on their
cultural, social and religious practices. In 2023, the US District Court in Nevada ruled
that the mine could go forward, a decision that was subsequently upheld by the US
Court of Appeals.32 It remains to be seen if other lithium projects will be blocked by
the courts.
L
ooking to the future, we will need to reduce our dependence on primary lithium
extraction to support the transition to renewable energy and electric vehicles.
Significant efforts are being put towards developing new battery technologies that use
alternatives to lithium, including sodium and magnesium, which can be extracted in
Lithium 187
great quantities from seawater. Sodium-ion batteries, in particular, have been the focus
of much research over the past few years. These batteries have the added advantage
of not requiring other rare elements, such as cobalt and nickel, and also being less
flammable. But the larger size of the sodium ions reduces the energy density of these
batteries relative to lithium-based versions, so it is unlikely that we will move entirely
away from lithium batteries any time soon.
In the meantime, new recycling technologies will be needed to reduce our
dependence on primary lithium extraction.33 Past recycling efforts have been inefficient
and rather haphazard, but significant progress is now being made. Construction of
lithium battery recycling plants is increasing rapidly; as of 2022, over one hundred
companies in North America and Europe were either recycling lithium batteries or
planning to do so soon. But even with significantly increased recycling capacity, we
will still see an increase in new lithium-containing consumer products. The first all-
electric car with lithium-ion batteries, the Tesla Roadster, was only introduced in
2008. Many of these vehicles have not yet reached their end of life, and the number
of new electric vehicles is expected to grow significantly over the coming decades.34 As
countries around the world race to transform their energy and transportation systems
to mitigate the worst possible effects of climate change, it is almost certain that lithium
will continue to be critically important. With adequate attention to legitimate social
and environmental concerns around lithium supply, we should be able to responsibly
meet the world’s future needs for this element.
Endnotes
1 Brian W. Jaskula, ‘Lithium’, in Mineral Commodity Summaries 2023, ed. US Geological Survey
(Reston, VA: USGA, 2023), pp. 108–09, https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023.pdf
2 Ibid.
3 International Energy Agency, The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions (Paris: IEA,
2021), https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions/
executive-summary
188 Heavy Metal
4 David London and Daniel J. Kontak, ‘Granitic Pegmatites: Scientific Wonders and Economic
Bonanzas’, Elements 8 (2012): 257–61, https://doi.org/10.2113/gselements.8.4.257
5 Patrick R. Phelps, Cin-Ty A. Lee and Douglas M. Morton, ‘Episodes of Fast Crystal Growth in
Pegmatites’, Nature Communications 11 (2020): 4986, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18806-w
6 Amit Katwala, ‘The Spiralling Environmental Cost of Our Lithium Battery Addiction’ (5 August
2018), Wired, https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact
7 Ibid.
8 See also ‘Metal and Water’ by Nadja Kunz in this volume.
9 Royce Kurmelovs, ‘How Australia Became the World’s Greatest Lithium
Supplier’ (11 November 2022), BBC, https://www.bbc.com/future/
article/20221110-how-australia-became-the-worlds-greatest-lithium-supplier
10 Jaskula, ‘Lithium’, pp. 108–09.
11 Ibid.
12 Kurmelovs, ‘How Australia Became’.
13 Jaskula, ‘Lithium’, pp. 108–09.
14 Ibid.
15 Robert F. Service, ‘Seawater Could Provide Nearly Unlimited Amounts of Critical Battery
Material’ (13 July 2020), Science, https://www.science.org/content/article/seawater-could-
provide-nearly-unlimited-amounts-critical-battery-material#:~:text=Booming%20electric%20
vehicle%20sales%20have,it%20straight%20out%20of%20seawater
16 See also ‘The Copper Supply Gap: Mining Bigger and Deeper’ by Erik Eberhardt in this volume.
17 See also ‘The Face of Mining’ by Carol Liao in this volume.
18 Jaskula, ‘Lithium’, pp. 108–09.
19 Sha Hua Alexandra Wexler, ‘China’s Risky Strategy to Control One-third of the World’s
Lithium Supply’ (24 May 2023), The Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com/articles/
china-spends-billions-on-risky-bets-to-lock-down-worlds-lithium-39e174e8
20 J. Moyo and G. York, ‘Zimbabwe’s Communities Discover the Cost of China’s Rush into
Lithium’ (16 November 2023), The Globe and Mail, pp. B1, B12.
Lithium 189
21 Ryan Dube, ‘The Place with the Most Lithium Is Blowing the Electric-car
Revolution’ (10 August 2022), The Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com/articles/
electric-cars-batteries-lithium-triangle-latin-america-11660141017
22 Ryan Dube, ‘Look Out, Tesla, There’s a Really Tiny Competitor in Your Rearview
Mirror’ (26 April 2023), The Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com/articles/
electric-vehicle-tiny-bolivia-86b28ebf
23 Ryan Dube, ‘Lithium Miners Slump as Chile Unveils State-led Policy’
(21 April 2023), The Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com/articles/
lithium-miners-slump-as-chile-unveils-state-led-policy-784895a8
24 Ibid.
25 Dube, ‘The Place with the Most Lithium’.
26 Eric Jakobsson, Orlando Argüello-Miranda, See-Wing Chiu et al., ‘Towards a Unified
Understanding of Lithium Action in Basic Biology and Its Significance for Applied Biology’,
Journal of Membrane Biology 250 (2017): 587–604, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00232-017-9998-2
27 Katwala, ‘The Spiralling Environmental Cost’.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Dube, ‘The Place with the Most Lithium’.
32 Jeniffer Solis, ‘9th Circuit Says Thacker Pass Lithium Mine Can
Proceed’ (20 July 2023), Nevada Current, https://www.nevadacurrent.
com/2023/07/20/9th-circuit-says-thacker-pass-lithium-mine-can-proceed/
33 See also ‘A New Life for Old Metals’ by Maria Holuszko in this volume.
34 Katwala, ‘The Spiralling Environmental Cost’.
190 Heavy Metal
