How lithium brine is pumped

Some lithium comes out of a desert salt flat where the sun does the work of a refinery.

stations: 3
things downstream: 13

The short version

Lithium brine is salty groundwater under dry salt flats, such as the Salar de Atacama in Chile. Wells pump it to the surface, where it is spread in large shallow ponds. Sun and wind evaporate the water for months, concentrating the lithium, which is then converted at a plant into lithium carbonate.

Pump the brine up

Wells sunk into the salt flat bring up lithium-rich brine from beneath the crust. In the Salar de Atacama the brine carries about 2,700 parts per million of lithium.

about 2,700 ppm lithium
Let the sun concentrate it

Brine is fed into a chain of shallow ponds. The Atacama gets under 30 millimeters of rain a year but loses 3,500 millimeters to evaporation, so the water leaves and salts and lithium stay behind.
Collect the strong solution

As the brine moves from pond to pond, other salts crystallize out first. The lithium solution that remains is pumped to a plant and converted to lithium carbonate.

End of the lineLithium brine Next it goes into lithium carbonate.

Worth repeating

The Salar de Atacama supplied about 36% of the world's lithium carbonate in 2017, followed by China with 23%.
Anaconda Company found the lithium in the brines in 1962 while searching for fresh water for its copper mining.
Chile, Bolivia and Argentina form the Lithium Triangle, known for its salt flats.