Bill Gates-backed fund leads $20m investment into lithium start-up
Breakthrough Energy Ventures promises a more efficient way to extract mineral in Chile
The Bill Gates-backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund has led a $20m investment into a start-up promising a more efficient way to extract lithium for batteries.
Oakland-based Lilac Solutions says its ion exchange technology will enable a “massive increase in lithium supply needed for electric vehicles” from brine-based deposits.
The investment comes amid growing concerns about the environmental impacts of lithium extraction from brine beneath the Atacama Desert in Chile, one of the driest deserts in the world.
In Chile, which supplies about one-third of the world’s lithium, the mineral is evaporated from brine in large ponds using the sunlight. But in addition to using brine, the process also uses local freshwater resources.
It takes around 70,000 litres of water to produce one tonne of lithium, a similar amount to copper mining, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
“The conventional processes for lithium extraction in use today are inefficient, expensive, and cannot deliver the production volumes needed for an electric vehicle future,” Lilac said.
Lilac says its ion exchange technology can boost the lithium recovery rate from brines to 80 per cent from 40 per cent. It can also be used on brines that have low-concentrations of lithium, it said.
“We can’t push for faster EV adoption without the resources to support production,” Carmichael Roberts of the $1bn Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, said. “Lilac Solutions’ novel technology can change the supply and demand equation by helping lithium producers extract much larger quantities at a significantly lower cost, and from new sources. This is the type of industrial innovation required to support a transition to EVs at scale.”
The other investors in the Series A round were The Engine, an investment fund set up by MIT; Lowercarbon Capital; and the Grantham Foundation.