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Simbol’s work continued through the DOE-funded project, DE-EE0002790: “Technologies for Extracting Valuable Metals and Compounds from Geothermal Fluids.” The project focused on recovery of lithium, manganese, zinc, and potassium from Salton Sea brines and included investigation of new methods to manage silica and produce commercial products from geothermal brine (Harrison 2014) with continued, additional work made possible through funding from the California Energy Commission (PIR 10-059). The lithium-focused parts of these research efforts culminated in pilot tests using Salton Sea geothermal brine, and outcomes were deemed encouraging for advancing to commercial scale with specific advances noted in silica management, lithium extraction, purification, concentration, and conversion into lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate products (see Appendix A for details; Harrison 2014 and 2015). Simbol’s pilot demonstrations showed that 95% of lithium could be extracted as LiCl with sorbents utilizing lithium-aluminum double hydroxide chloride (LDH), and concentrated LiCl solution could be converted to Li2CO3 and LiOH·H2O (lithium hydroxide monohydrate, or LHM) end products with 90% yield (Harrison 2014). Unfortunately, Simbol’s financing and business collapsed in 2015, and detailed cost and performance data are not publicly available. The evolving opportunity for commercial extraction of valuable minerals from geothermal brines was given a boost in 2014 when DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Office introduced additional R&D funding to support mineral recovery from geothermal brines. DOE-sponsored R&D efforts focused on characterization of geothermal mineral resources and mineral recovery from geothermal brines—DE-FOA-0001016 in FY 2014 and DE-FOA-0001376 in FY 2016—with primary focus on rare earth elements and lithium. Of the funded projects, two DE-FOA-0001016 projects focused on lithium extraction from geothermal brines (Ventura et al. 2016; Renew and Hansen 2017). Ventura et al. (2016) published results from their project, “Selective Recovery of Metals from Geothermal Brines,” and Renew and Hansen (2017) published results from “Geothermal Thermoelectric Generation (G-TEG) with Integrated Temperature Driven Membrane Distillation and Novel Manganese Oxide for Lithium Extraction.” Renew and Hansen (2017) provide proof of concept for a lithium extraction process integrated with thermoelectric generation. The components of the process included silica removal by precipitation with iron, brine concentration with membrane distillation, nanofiltration to remove divalent cations, and manganese oxide adsorbents to extract and recover lithium. Details of the process are described in Appendix A. Renew and Hansen (2017) performed a techno-economic analysis that suggested the process would not be economically viable, particularly with respect to Li concentration (150 mg/L) and Li2CO3 ($20,000/mt) price sensitivity used in their study. Higher concentrations (300 mg/L), higher prices ($28,000/mt), or reduced capital costs (-27%) potentially could support project economics. From a technical perspective, the authors identified potential improvements that could improve economics, in particular improved membrane distillation flux performance, reduced lithium sorbent column size, reduced lithium sorbent usage, and increased operating period between regeneration cycles. Ventura et al. (2016) examined feasibility of developing a new generation of ion-exchange resins based on metal-ion imprinted polymers for the separation of lithium and manganese from geothermal fluids. Lithium- and manganese-imprinted polymer beads, with the metal template preserved in the bead to accept the specific metal ions, were demonstrated in batch extractions and packed bed columns to be selective solid sorbents for extraction of lithium and manganese from a synthetic geothermal fluid. Details of the lithium extraction process are described in 9 This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.PDF Image | Lithium Extraction from Geothermal Brines
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Product and Development Focus for Infinity Turbine
ORC Waste Heat Turbine and ORC System Build Plans: All turbine plans are $10,000 each. This allows you to build a system and then consider licensing for production after you have completed and tested a unit.Redox Flow Battery Technology: With the advent of the new USA tax credits for producing and selling batteries ($35/kW) we are focussing on a simple flow battery using shipping containers as the modular electrolyte storage units with tax credits up to $140,000 per system. Our main focus is on the salt battery. This battery can be used for both thermal and electrical storage applications. We call it the Cogeneration Battery or Cogen Battery. One project is converting salt (brine) based water conditioners to simultaneously produce power. In addition, there are many opportunities to extract Lithium from brine (salt lakes, groundwater, and producer water).Salt water or brine are huge sources for lithium. Most of the worlds lithium is acquired from a brine source. It's even in seawater in a low concentration. Brine is also a byproduct of huge powerplants, which can now use that as an electrolyte and a huge flow battery (which allows storage at the source).We welcome any business and equipment inquiries, as well as licensing our turbines for manufacturing.| CONTACT TEL: 608-238-6001 Email: greg@infinityturbine.com | RSS | AMP |