This is the second Northeast Cleantech Open finalist that I’m covering, but before going further, let me make it clear that these posts are not intended to be an indorsement. All the finalists are early-stage enterprises and I haven’t vetted their offerings. Consequently, I can’t say with any confidence whether they will succeed or not. I certainly hope they are all successful. And I would be pleased if some of them did significantly alter the landscape. However, only time will tell.

With the EV market growing significantly, and demand for battery storage exploding, the need for lithium will continue to increase. As I have covered in numerous posts, currently, the major suppliers of lithium are not in the most stable countries. To make matters worse, the mining process consumes a great deal of water and isn’t particularly environmentally friendly.

If there is any segment of the market that is in need of a new approach it’s lithium extraction. And that is precisely what Virginia-based Ellexco – founded in 2021 – believes that they have developed.

I previously did a post on oil companies entering the lithium business. The reason was because lithium is present in oil brine, which is basically a waste byproduct of oil drilling.

The presence of lithium in brine is what Ellexco is all about. They have developed a chemical-free electricity-driven approach to directly extract lithium from brines to produce lithium hydroxide. Not only could their technology help increase the lithium supply, it could do it in a most environmentally friendly way. The company positions it as “green lithium.”

Ellexco participated in the U.S. Department of Energy’s program to identify innovations to source domestic lithium from geothermal brines. It is hoped that the technique known as direct lithium extraction or DLE will allow the U.S. to begin generating a domestic supply of lithium. That would be a very positive step forward on a number of levels.

Funded by the Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) a total of $2 million was awarded to three companies. The winner was the team from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Team SelectPureLi for their redox membrane for lithium hydroxide extraction. However, as one of three winners, Ellexco was awarded a prize of $500,000.

I may not have vetted the company but there is no doubt that the folks at the DOE saw something of value. That’s no guarantee of success but it’s a great start.

Best of luck to Ellexco in the national finals.

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