Smaller is Cheaper: How the U.S. Can Compete with China in Energy Supply Chains, Starting with Lithium
China has taken a commanding lead over the U.S. in the manufacturing of hardware for modern energy systems. In every major category, from magnets to batteries to solar panels, China has a massive advantage stemming from ultra-low construction costs for building the processing plants that produce raw materials and industrial products.
The U.S. cannot compete by copying Chinese plant designs, since these would cost 3x more to construct here in the U.S. Rather, the U.S. must leverage new technology to design smaller plants with higher throughput per square foot that are fundamentally cheaper to build. This would mimic an approach that has been highly successful in maintaining U.S. leadership in AI computing and semiconductors: smaller is cheaper. We call this miniaturization.
Lithium production is a perfect example of this. Lithium extraction technologies have historically required large-scale installations with sprawling acreage of process equipment. This has worked for lithium brine projects in China where constructions costs are extraordinarily low and the brine feedstocks are pre-concentrated in massive evaporation ponds. But in other parts of the world, sprawling designs lead to capital costs that are prohibitively high. Lithium brine developers outside of China need new technology that makes lithium production plants smaller and therefore cheaper to build.
Lilac has developed new process technology for lithium production that downsizes reactor volume by 20x, and also reduces the amount of concrete, steel, and construction needed to bring lithium production online. This can allow the U.S. to compete with China in a critical part of the supply chain for energy and defense hardware.
Miniaturization in Industrial Processing
Miniaturization has transformed countless industries by making critical components smaller and cheaper while maintaining or improving performance. The most famous example is computing, where transistor costs have fallen by a trillion-fold over 60 years. Each new generation of computer chips packs more transistors into the same space, cutting costs exponentially.
Industrial processes have also achieved significant cost improvements by reducing the size of key components per unit of output:
- Grid energy storage: Modern lithium-ion batteries pack 3x more energy into the same volume compared to early versions, reducing the amount of land, concrete, and steel needed for grid-scale installations.
- Desalination: Today’s desalination plants use about 4x less membranes compared to older designs, thanks to better materials with higher throughput.
- Petrochemicals: Advances in catalyst and reactor design have increased catalyst throughput in some applications by nearly 10x over several decades. This enables petrochemical plants to produce more chemicals in smaller reactors.
The pattern is consistent: higher performance enables smaller equipment, which means lower capital and operating costs.
Why are Conventional Lithium Plants So Large and Expensive?
Process plants to extract lithium from brine rely on an active material called a sorbent media. The performance of this media determines how much media is required, how many reactors are needed to load and operate the media, and how much construction must be completed to install the reactors and ancillary systems. Therefore, a key metric for evaluating lithium brine technologies is media productivity, which is defined by how many kilograms of lithium can be produced every day using a cubic meter of media (kg LCE/day/m3).
Historically, sorbent medias for lithium extraction have been based on conventional alumina materials, which suffer from fundamentally low media productivity for two reasons:
Slow Space Velocity: Lithium diffuses slowly through conventional adsorbents, so brine must be flowed slowly through the reactors to provide enough time for the lithium to be captured. The speed at which lithium brine can be pumped through the reactor is called space velocity, which is measured in bed volumes per hour (BV/hr).
Low Sorption Capacity: Conventional adsorbents only load a small amount of lithium before they’re “full” and need to be regenerated. The amount of lithium that can be loaded into the media is called sorption capacity, which is measured in grams of lithium per liter of media (g Li/L media).
Media productivity directly determines reactor throughput. For conventional medias, Slow Space Velocity + Low Sorption Capacity = Ultra-Low Media Productivity. This means you need enormous amounts of material and massive arrays of reactors to achieve lithium production targets. This requires very large buildings filled with piping, control systems, and other infrastructure. The result? High capital costs that make only the highest-grade brine resources economically viable.
Lilac’s Approach to Miniaturization
To reduce the cost of lithium extraction, Lilac has applied the lessons of miniaturization: invest in developing higher performance materials to reduce equipment sizing and reduce costs. Lilac developed a new media for lithium extraction with fundamentally different materials properties and much higher performance. This new media is a ceramic material that operates via an ion exchange (IX) principle, exchanging lithium for a hydrogen ion.
Lilac IX media delivers fast reaction kinetics, meaning lithium can fully diffuse into the media even when the brine is moving rapidly through the system. We also designed a new reactor to fully leverage this media using modular off-the-shelf equipment. Altogether, this enables Lilac to achieve space velocities of 80 – 130 BV/hr, versus just 0.5−7 BV/hr for conventional systems. In practical terms, this means brine flows through our reactors faster while still achieving excellent lithium recovery.
Our IX media can absorb 10 – 20 g Li/L media, compared to just 1 – 5 for conventional alumina adsorbents. Higher capacity means Lilac loads more lithium into a smaller reactor, and with much faster space velocity the loading cycle also happens faster.
Figure 1. Comparing Materials Properties.
Lilac’s latest Gen 5 IX media is a significant improvement over Gen 4 and outperforms conventional alumina adsorbents by 1 – 2 orders of magnitude on the key metrics determining media productivity: space velocity and sorption capacity.
Lilac’s improved materials properties and reactor design enable a 20x improvement in media productivity compared to conventional alumina adsorbents. This means that 20x less media and 20x less reactor volume is required to support any given lithium production capacity.
Figure 2. Comparing Media Productivity and Reactor Sizing.
Lilac’s Gen 5 IX reactors leverage higher media productivity to achieve higher throughput. This reduces the required volume of media and size of reactors needed to support lithium production targets.
What This Means for Plant Size and Cost
This step-change increase in media productivity cascades throughout the plant design.
For a typical 25,000 tonne per year lithium project, conventional adsorbents require approximately 2,000 m³ of material, housed in dozens or hundreds of reactors. In contrast, Gen 5 Lilac IX requires about 100 m³ of material, housed in just a few reactors.
Lilac’s more compact design translates to smaller buildings, smaller ancillary systems, and less construction cost. For mid- and high-grade lithium brine projects, Lilac projects a 30% capital cost savings, and for low-grade brines, the savings are even greater.
Opening Up New Resources
Many large-scale lithium resources in the U.S. and globally feature lower concentrations of lithium and have not been economically viable to date. Many of these brine resources can now be unlocked using the Lilac IX technology.
When conventional alumina adsorbents are applied to lower grade lithium brines (e.g. below 200 mg/L), their performance declines significantly, with sorption capacities falling to as low as 1 g Li/L media. Lilac is able to maintain relatively consistent performance and deliver a compact and low-cost plant design even for low grade brines below 100 mg/L.
Take the Great Salt Lake in Utah: at just 70 mg/L lithium (10 – 30x lower than typical South American projects), conventional adsorbents would be uneconomic. With Lilac’s higher throughput, the plant shrinks dramatically.
Our recently completed pilot demonstrated a space velocity around 100 BV/hr while maintaining 87% lithium recovery. This unlocks low-cost lithium production from an easy-to-access domestic lithium resource with minimal construction footprint.
Lilac also reduces water and energy consumption, allowing projects to achieve greater economies of scale and better financial returns all while maintaining a compact footprint.
The Path Forward
For the U.S. to compete with China in lithium processing, we need to implement high throughput reactors with a compact footprint and low capital costs. Lilac’s unique ion exchange media makes this possible for the first time.
Ready to learn more?
Download our Gen 5 technical white paper for comprehensive performance data and detailed cost modeling across multiple brine resources from around the world.
