As electrical autos roll off meeting strains, a bottleneck sits upstream: lithium refinement. Turning uncooked lithium into the compounds wanted for batteries is dear, messy, and energy-intensive, however Mangrove Lithium, a Vancouver-based startup, has a greater means. The corporate has developed an electrochemical refining course of that converts lithium feedstocks into battery-grade lithium hydroxide.
Changing uncooked lithium to lithium hydroxide sometimes requires roasting spodumene—a mineral from which lithium is derived—at excessive temperatures, after which leaching it with acid to transform it to lithium sulfate. That compound then must be transformed to lithium hydroxide. “It’s a thermochemical response that makes use of heavy quantities of reagent chemical compounds, and generates a sodium sulfate waste stream,” says Ryan DayMangrove Lithium’s director of operations.
Additional tightening the bottleneck, the vast majority of the world’s lithium—60 to 70 p.c—is now refined in China, and export restrictions and geopolitical tensions have disrupted provide chains in recent times. Transport uncooked lithium abroad to be refined additionally provides to batteries’ complete carbon footprint. A brand new mannequin for lithium refining may reshape not simply the economics of electrical autos, however the geography and environmental footprint of the worldwide battery provide chain.
Mangrove’s demo plant in British Columbia is scheduled to start out manufacturing within the second half of 2026.
How Does Mangrove’s Refinement Work?
Mangrove replaces the standard, resource-intensive response with a course of that makes use of electrical energy, water, and oxygen. In an electrochemical cell, they stream brine via an electrolyzer, which consists of a steel field with three compartments between the cathode and anode. The compartments are separated by ion alternate membranes, semipermeable boundaries that solely enable sure ions to cross. Lithium sulfate flows via the central compartment, and the cell’s electrical area splits the salt aside. “Lithium, which is a optimistic ion, will transfer throughout a membrane towards the cathode,” says Day. There, “we’re reacting oxygen and water to create hydroxide ions, which be part of with the lithium from the salt to make lithium hydroxide.”
In the meantime, on the alternative aspect of the cell, the sulfate—a detrimental ion—strikes in the direction of the anode, the place water is being break up to supply protons and oxygen gasoline. The protons mix with sulfate ions to make sulfuric acid.
“You run that course of repeatedly, and over time you’re producing lithium hydroxide, which you’ll ship to a crystallizer,” Day says. “There’s no vital waste product and all you’re feeding in is brine, water, oxygen, and electrical energy.” The sulfuric acid is recovered and will be circulated again upstream to leach extra brine from the uncooked feed materials.
Usually, maintaining the ion alternate membrane intact is likely one of the largest challenges for scaling one of these course of, says Feifei Shi, assistant professor of vitality engineering at Penn State. Shi, who researches electrochemical-based refinement strategies, notes that the strategy can extra simply activate the required reactions, however faces limitations for large-scale purposes.
The electrochemical course of separates out lithium by passing it via three compartments separated by semipermeable boundaries. Mangrove Lithium
Mangrove’s Oxygen-Based mostly Cathode
Mangrove’s key innovation and what allows the method is an oxygen-based cathode. “Driving the response requires detailed engineering,” says Day. The corporate designed an electrode that lets a gasoline and a liquid react collectively, utilizing simply sufficient water to make the oxygen response work—with out including a lot that it floods the system and creates hydrogen gasoline as a substitute.
The electrodes are made with a proprietary course of that mixes a number of devoted layers which permit for a balanced stream of water and oxygen to entry the energetic catalyst websites. This design favors the oxygen discount response for over 99.5 p.c of the full cathode exercise. It additionally reduces the quantity of electrical energy wanted to drive the method, as a result of “oxygen discount requires much less voltage than water discount,” Day says. Demand for battery minerals is surging past simply lithium, with automakers competing for provides of nickel, cobalt, graphite, and manganese. Concurrently, utilities are deploying grid-scale batteries that use the identical supplies in even bigger volumes. Refining capability—not simply mining—may turn out to be the essential choke level on this buildout, as a result of battery makers require extremely specified, ultra-pure compounds.
Whereas Mangrove is initially focusing on lithium, their electrochemical structure isn’t inherently lithium-specific, and may very well be tailored to different battery supplies that face comparable purification bottlenecks. Nickel and cobalt sulfate manufacturing, for instance, nonetheless depend on multi-step precipitation and solvent-extraction processes that generate vital waste and require massive reagent inputs. “It will work instantly in software to different alkali-metal salts,” Day says.
Mangrove’s demo plant in British Columbia will make 1,000 tons per yr of lithium hydroxide. If the corporate can scale its expertise because it hopes, it may start to reshape not simply the battery provide chain, however the geopolitics of the vitality transition.
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