Systems and methods fo rmetal production from brine solutions

Abstract

Method(s) and system(s) for the direct production of lithium and other metals from a brine solution containing salts of various metal cations at room temperature via a combined sorbent extraction and electrochemical extraction/plating process. This process uses a skeleton structure material that can reversibly insert/extract a desired metal cation to absorb the desired metal ions from a brine solution. The metal impregnated skeleton structure material is then transferred to an electrochemical cell where the metal ions are extracted from the structure and plated in the form of metal onto an electronically conductive substrate. This process is a combination of methods to take metal ions directly from a brine solution to produce an end-product of metal and is a significant improvement over current industrial processes that will reduce the energy required for metal production.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.