Table salt for Tesla Electric vehicles (EVs) are good in many | Tech for Good

Table salt for Tesla

Electric vehicles (EVs) are good in many ways. They do not have any emissions, and recent models are often more technically advanced than their gas-powered counterparts. There are, however, factors that constrain the extensive development of this sector. One of these is the production cost and inefficiency of the strategic material for EV batteries, lithium. Tesla looks to have found the cure for this problem.

Their recent patent application has revealed some details on the new 'table salt' lithium extraction process. Elon Musk vaguely described it as using table salt to extract lithium from ore.

The dominant source for lithium mining is lithium brines (LiBs) due to the low cost associated with Li extraction. However, increasing demand for LiBs makes it necessary to explore other lithium sources.

Another method for Li extraction is to extract the Li from clay minerals. Clay minerals are mixed with an aqueous solution of common mineral acids, such as H2SO4 or HCl, and then heated under atmospheric pressure to leach out the lithium in the clay minerals. This method has a lot of disadvantages. It leaches out high concentrations of impurities with lithium; it is less cost-effective and not environmentally friendly.

Tesla summarizes its new method in the patent application abstract:
The extraction process includes mixing a positively charged ion (cation) source with the clay mineral, performing a high-energy mill of the clay mineral, and performing a liquid leach to obtain a lithium-rich leach solution.

So, it is a little more complicated than just adding table salt. However, the cation source described by Tesla in the patent application is indeed NaCl, sodium chloride (aka table salt).

Drew Baglino, SVP of engineering at Tesla, claimed that the new process would result in a fantastic 33% reduction in lithium cost.

Tesla plans to use this new process on its new lithium claim deposit in Nevada of over 10,000 acres. Successful production trials would mean a lower price for batteries and EVs. That could significantly speed up the process of large-scale replacement of carbon-emitting vehicles with EVs.

Source: Electrek

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