A joint venture company to recover lithium from wastewater produced at industrial sites in the US is being formed by MGX Minerals and Eureka Resources.
Canada-based lithium developer MGX and US-headquartered oil and gas wastewater recycler Eureka have signed a letter of intent to jointly extract lithium from wastewater produced at non-conventional oil and gas sites across the Marcellus and Utica shale formations in the eastern US.
MGX has developed a rapid lithium extraction technology that “eliminates or greatly reduces the physical footprint and investment needed for large, multi-phase, lake-sized, lined evaporation ponds”.
MGX president and CEO Jared Lazerson said the process “is a broad paradigm shift for the energy sector”. “There may be a lot of lithium in the eastern US. Our joint venture plans to install multiple lithium rapid recovery systems at wastewater treatment facilities across the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.”
Deep natural gas reserves located in the Marcellus and Utica shale account for about 40% of all natural gas produced in the US. Eureka uses advanced treatment technology to convert 10,000 barrels per day of water produced from the areas into products such as high-purity sodium chloride and calcium chloride. Through the joint venture, Eureka will also start extracting lithium.
Meanwhile, MGX said research work in partnership with the University of British Columbia in Vancouver on a research project to develop next-generation lithium-ion batteries “capable of quadrupling energy density from current 100Wh/kg up to 400Wh/kg” for use in long-range electric vehicles and grid storage.
