This issue, we look at the race to extract lithium and a robot with sensitivity to touch.
Lab: US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory
What: Advanced membrane technology to extract lithium from water
Stage: TRL-2
With lithium production concentrated in just a handful of countries, concerns about supply chain security abound.
Scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago have developed a membrane technology that can efficiently extract lithium from salt water brines.
The membrane is made from vermiculite, a naturally abundant clay, which consists of ultrathin layers stacked together.
To prevent the clay layers falling apart in water, microscopic aluminium oxide pillars between each layer hold them in place.
This architecture enables the membrane to filter ions based on both size and charge, key to separating lithium from similar elements like magnesium and sodium.
Sodium ions change the surface charge from neutral to positive, repelling higher...