Researchers at MIT, working alongside collaborators, have introduced a new method for extracting lithium from hard rock deposits that could significantly reduce both cost and environmental impact.

Traditional lithium extraction from mineral ores typically involves heating rock to temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius, followed by chemical leaching processes.This approach is energy-intensive, expensive, and generates substantial waste, as most of the processed rock is discarded after lithium extraction.The MIT-developed technique replaces this conventional process with a low-temperature, closed-loop chemical method.It uses a specialized liquid reagent to dissolve lithium-bearing minerals, breaking them down into their usable components.

Importantly, the process not only yields battery-grade lithium salts but also recovers other valuable materials such as smelter-grade alumina and cement-ready silica, which can be reused in industrial applications.This multi-output approach helps minimize waste and improves overall resource efficiency.

A key advantage of the system is that the solvent and reagents used in the extraction can be recovered and recycled, allowing the process to operate with near-zero waste output.According to the researchers, the method could cut production costs by roughly half compared to conventional hard rock lithium extraction.They also suggest it could become competitive with lithium production from brine sources, which are currently among the lowest-cost methods.

The project’s lead researcher, MIT materials scientist Yet-Ming Chiang, has described the approach as potentially the lowest-energy and lowest-cost method for obtaining lithium from any source.

The work aligns with broader efforts at MIT focused on accelerating technologies that can transition from laboratory research to commercial-scale deployment within a relatively short timeframe.

The findings have been published in the journal Science and are being positioned as a possible breakthrough in supporting the growing demand for lithium in batteries used for electric vehicles and renewable energy storage systems.