About the String Technology:
- A set of porous fibres twisted into strings and engineered to have a water-loving (hydrophilic) core and water-repelling surface.
- When one end is dipped in a salt-water solution, the water travels up the string because of capillary action.
- Then, the water evaporates quickly from the string’s surface. This leaves behind salt ions such as sodium and lithium.
- The water will continue to evaporate like this as the salts become increasingly concentrated, eventually forming sodium chloride and lithium chloride crystals.
- The strings don’t just concentrate on the salts. Since lithium and sodium have different physical properties, they crystallise at different locations on the strings.
- Sodium, with its low solubility, crystallises on the lower part, while the highly soluble lithium salts crystallise near the top.
The current method of production
- A large majority of the lithium produced in the world is extracted from “brine reservoirs” located in salt flats.
- Conventional methods of extraction rely on a series of massive evaporation ponds that concentrate lithium from saltwater reservoirs and salt flats of underground aquifers.
- This method of production can require hundreds of square kilometres, and it often takes months or even years to produce lithium that can be used in batteries.
- It is commercially viable in a few locations around the world.
Key facts about Lithium
- It is a soft, silvery-white metal that belongs to the alkali metals group of the periodic table of the elements.
- Features
- It has the lowest density of all metals.
- It is the lightest of the solid elements.
- It reacts vigorously with
- Occurrence:
- It does not occur as a metal in nature but is found combined in small amounts in igneous rocks.
- Major Reserves: Its reserves are majorly concentrated in the lithium triangle in South America – Argentina, Bolivia & Chile, with 50% of the deposits concentrated in these regions.
