Southern Hemisphere's New Lithium Project Shakes Up South America's Top Players

South America: Southern Hemisphere Mining has pegged 27 square kilometres of prospective ground in South America's “Lithium triangle”, just a stone's throw away from the world-class Hombre Muerto and Rincon Lithium projects. The company is currently exploring for Lithium at its Lago Lithium Exploration project located in the Salinas Grandes Salar basin, which is believed to be highly prospective for Lithium. Southern Hemisphere Mining aims to establish a significant Lithium resource at the Lago project to meet growing global demand for this key battery mineral.

A new approach known as direct extraction is gaining popularity as a method of extracting Lithium salt from Brine. Unlike the traditional method of drying out the Lithium Brine through sun exposure in large ponds, direct extraction involves processing the Brine to extract Lithium salt. The Brine, which is a salty solution situated beneath the earth's crust, is found mainly beneath salt-lakes. It has a high mineral concentration, including Lithium and other minerals, and is around three times saltier than seawater. Southern Hemisphere's project involves drilling into the evaporitic rock to extract the Brine, which is then processed using chemical methods to separate the Lithium from waste. The waste is subsequently re-injected underground, while the extracted Lithium is transformed into battery-grade product for sale. Geological modelling by SQM indicates that the Brine is in pore space or cavities within the evaporitic rock. The process of drilling and production used to extract the Brine is like those used in the oil and gas industry.

New technology has emerged that eliminates the need for massive evaporation ponds and converts lower Lithium, high impurity Brines into a saleable product. This technology revolutionizes the process of Lithium mining from Brine, making it more sustainable and efficient. Instead of relying on large evaporation ponds to concentrate Lithium by evaporating Brine, Brine is directly pulled into a processing unit and subjected to a series of chemical processes to extract the Lithium. This process is faster and more environmentally friendly as it significantly reduces water usage, minimizes waste, and creates a purer final product. With this new technology, the extracted Lithium can be transformed into a saleable product, ready to meet the increasing demand for Lithium in many industries.

Vulcan energy is likewise pushing ahead with direct Lithium extraction as a component of its zero-carbon Lithium brackish water play in Germany. The organization as of late postponed an arrangement to create the principal lots of Lithium delivered utilizing an immediate extraction technique known as "sorptiontype". Inquisitively, Vulcan says its brackish water is a "geothermal saline solution" that isn't just equipped for delivering Lithium, yet in addition geothermal energy.

Southern Side of the equator says its immediate extraction interaction will give quicker Lithium extraction, diminished ecological effect, versatility, and a high immaculateness Lithium yield. Named the "Lithium triangle", the region between Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina, contains around 54% of the world's Lithium holds. The US Geographical Study says Chile alone has 9.6 million tons of Lithium holds and represented 30% of worldwide Lithium creation last year. The Lithium triangle has for quite some time been viewed as one of the most worthwhile bits of the worldwide Lithium pie and Southern Side of the equator currently has its banner immovably appended to it.