Novel Membrane System for Lithium Recovery from Oilfield Brines

Enriching lithium from oilfield brines while performing desalination of the produced water can provide a solution that recovers valuable lithium from highly mineralized brine while at the same time making possible to reuse and recycle the treated waste water. State-of-the-art technologies for recovering lithium from oilfield brine include gravity separation, gas flotation, and flocculation. These processes face challenges such as long operation cycles due to the very low mineral concentration, the complicated processes required due to the many competitive minerals in the brine, and high energy consumption. Therefore, innovative metal recovery technologies are needed to provide an economically viable process for lithium recovery from brines and waste streams in a manner that can be integrated with the desalination process. Bettergy proposes to develop a novel membrane technology with high flux, excellent fouling resistance, freedom from pore blockage, lower energy consumption, and excellent reliability for various source brines. The proposed membrane is essentially an inorganic material with uniform pore structure with high ionic selectivity. In combination with the unique design with minimum footprint requirements, position the membrane to meet the challenges of desalination of and lithium recovery from various brines.Lithium powers nearly everything we rely on today — from cars, laptops, to mobile phones — and it serves as the foundation for our future. As vehicles and electricity become cleaner, demand for this precious metal is estimated to triple by 2025 to 670,000 tons, representing a market value worth of $13 billion. An integration of lithium recovery from oilfield brines and desalination — a beneficiary reuse of the oilfield waste water through advanced technologies — can not only remedy the environmental risk, but also generate financial benefits through the recovery of valuable minerals that are contained in the brines. Bettergy’s technology will use existing oil and gas infrastructure to process the produced water and recover lithium in a cost- effective way, reduce lithium production time by 99% percent compared to conventional methods, and significantly reduce the environmental footprint of the energy industry.