All sorts of electronics - cell phones, laptops, digital cameras, etc. - are ever-present in today’s society. Nowadays, these electronics are powered from Lithium-ion batteries. Lithium is extracted from two sources: ores and salt brines - in the chemical production, lithium minerals are transformed into basic chemicals such as lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide, and lithium chloride, which are used to produce many derivatives (Sun et al., 2017, p. 51-52; Wanger, 2010; USGS, 2018). The major processes throughout the lithium life cycle can be divided into five stages: resource mining, chemical production, product manufacture, product use and waste management (Sun et al., 2017). The majority of lithium, originally, was produced from mineral …show more content…
51). To extract lithium from brines, the salt-rich waters are pumped and into a series of evaporation ponds where solar evaporation occurs at high altitudes over a number of months. In contrast, lithium that is extracted from mineral ore sourced, mainly spodumene, in Australia, for example, crushes and heats the ore for decrepitation. Then, the spodumene concentrate is cooled and milled into fine powder before being mixed with sulphuric acid and roasted again. A thickener-filter system then separates waste from the concentrated liquor, while precipitation removes magnesium and calcium from this solution. Finally, soda ash is added and lithium carbonate is crystallized, heated, filtered and dried as 99 percent pure lithium carbonate (Bell, 2017). Next, in the product manufacture stage, lithium chemicals are used to produce the wide range of products previously …show more content…
In addition, the companies that dominate the market for lithium are Chile’s Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM), the U.S.’s FMC and Albermarle (Frankel & Whoriskey, 2016). Further, the production of lithium and the trade of lithium minerals and chemicals were mainly from Chile, Argentina, and Australia to other countries (USGS, 2018). In regards to the export of lithium, Chile and Argentina were the top countries with the highest brines export, while Australia had the highest lithium ores export. On the import side, China was the major importing country of lithium minerals (Sun et al., 2017, p. 53); it is projected that China’s dependence on lithium import will increase as the growth of electric vehicle market increases (Sun et al., 2017, p. 50). In regards to the trade of lithium chemicals, the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea and EU were the major importing countries, accounting for 88% of total import (Sun et al., 2017,, p. 53). The production and trade of lithium indicates a potential challenge/risk that high dependent consumers, like China, face: If lithium supply in these three countries “encounters fluctuations due to some economic or political reasons, the balance between global lithium supply and demand might break down in a short time” (Sun et al., 2017, p.