Do you still remember playing rope games when you were a child? Who would have thought that this seemingly simple rope would have the ability to change the rules of the game for the global lithium industry? That's right, this time it is not an ordinary rope that will appear, but a magical lithium fishing tool developed by civil and environmental engineering scholars at Princeton University in the United States!
Hey, are you ready to find out?
First of all, we have to understand the life experience of this "lithium". Did you know that lithium is a very active and easily ignited metallic element, so you can't find pure lithium in nature. It is often found in ore or brine in the form of salt. What the hell is brine? Don't worry, I'll tell you! It's actually the salty mineral liquid left over from seawater or lake water, which is rich in salt minerals.
In recent years, with the rise of new energy industries such as electric vehicles and electronic products, the demand for lithium has risen sharply, and it is regarded as a sweet spot in the field of new energy. As a result, countries around the world are desperately mining lithium and extracting lithium brine, but the environmental cost behind this is far from pediatrics. Think about it, just to extract lithium from brine, you have to build a large number of evaporation ponds, which covers a huge area and requires a lot of water and chemicals, which is really a difficult and expensive project. What's more, you have to evaporate 2,200 tons of water to produce 1 ton of lithium, do you think it's cost-effective?
Don't be discouraged, our scientists don't eat this set! They invented a porous rope that is waterproof on the surface and hydrophilic on the inside, and once it is immersed in the brine, the brine flows upwards through the "capillary" effect. When the water evaporates, the salt minerals crystallize on the rope. And, due to the different solubility of different salts, the lithium salt will be preferentially crystallized at the top of the rope, which is really once and for all!
Researchers have calculated that using this "rope technique" to extract lithium can reduce land occupation by 90 percent, and the production efficiency can directly increase by 20 times! Imagine that the protracted evaporation process that used to take months or even years to complete can now be completed in only one month, no matter how you look at it, it is an earth-shattering reversal!
The best part is that the rope is inherently inexpensive. Do you think, a few dollars of porous fiber is enough, get rid of the expensive investment of building a large evaporation pond, and do not need to waste so much water and chemicals for deep processing, but it does not greatly reduce the production cost of lithium?
But don't be happy, we have to savor the uniqueness of this technology. Because it can not only fish for lithium from brine, but also from the trace lithium resources in deserts, oil wells and oceans. Have you ever thought that the 230 billion tons of lithium reserves in the sea will one day be able to be utilized? If there really is such a day, what kind of industrial changes may this top lithium storage bring? Just thinking about it makes people's blood rush!
In the end, the key to the sensation of this rope tool is that it not only improves the efficiency of lithium production, but more importantly, greatly reduces environmental costs. We all know that the traditional lithium extraction process can be described as a bombardment of water resources, land resources and even the consumption of chemicals, and ecological and environmental protection have become victims. But this strange rope can give priority to environmental protection, so as to achieve the sustainable development and utilization of resources.
Truth be told, I just hid good news. In fact, in the first half of this year, China has built the world's first project to extract lithium from seawater using ion exchange technology in Qingdao, and it is expected to be officially put into operation by the end of the year! However, unfortunately, the output of this project is limited, and the power to comprehensively change the industry pattern is not enough. But please believe that there will be more good performances in the future.
In general, although this rope invention seems insignificant, its core idea is the pursuit of the times of "making the best use of things, green and low-carbon". If we can all study and innovate like this inventor in the future, it will definitely open up a new world that has never been seen before for mankind. What do you think? Let's look forward to this bright future together!
Disclaimer: The information in this article comes from the Internet, which is not guaranteed to be completely correct and is for reference only.