The need for lithium in EV batteries isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Modern batteries need the stuff, and it isn't exactly the easiest thing to get a hold of. Extracting lithium can be a rigorous, time-consuming, and earth-polluting process. Which is why this new technological breakthrough from the University of Texas at Austin could be huge. It's a new extraction process that essentially uses a new type of bio-inspired filter to extract the lithium faster, easier, and with less harmful waste.
“Lithium is in our phones, our cars and the power grid, but getting it out of the ground cleanly is still a hard problem,” said Manish Kumar, a professor in the Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, in the release. “Our goal is a process that is faster, cleaner and easier to run.”
