Dr. Liu’s team advances to semi-finals of DOE Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize competition

Dr. Xitong Liu and his Ph.D. student Lingchen Kong are leading a GW team to participate in the US Department of Energy’s Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize. Lithium is a critical material that supports electrical vehicles and grid-level energy storage. The prize competition consists of three phases to identify, develop, and test innovative solutions to improve direct lithium extraction from geothermal brines. As announced by the DOE on November 4, the GW team has been selected as one of the 15 semi-finalists to advance to Phase 2 of the competition, which will take place between November 2021 and February 2022. The team proposes to develop an innovative electricity-driven, chemical-free process for direct lithium extraction from geothermal brines.