Forward Water Technologies Corporation has announced an update on the studies of its patented forward osmosis technology solution that has the potential to significantly reduce water usage in many industrial use applications.
Currently, the technology is being tested across industries with positive results, reducing water consumption by as much as 90% in many applications.
In particular, the company said it continues to evaluate how the technology can add further value in the brine mining sector.
READ: Forward Water Technologies CEO says the company is seeing 'rapidly growing interest' in various wastewater sectors
To advance industrial discussions, Forward Water has recently signed non-disclosure agreements with two major lithium extraction companies having access to large lithium-rich, aquifer-based brine deposits.
Brine mining is the isolation of valuable materials from naturally occurring mineral solutions in aquafers or similar underground deposits. These materials include in-demand rare earth elements and other metals such as lithium. However, these brines often have very low levels of these valuable materials and require significant concentration to enable them to be economically retrieved.
Today, this is usually done using solar or forced thermal evaporation, both of which have high energy costs and long processing times. In addition, traditional methods have proven to have detrimental effects on the environment.
Forward Technologies’ low energy forward osmosis process can concentrate the valuable materials from these brines with much greater efficiency and at a lower cost. Additionally, the clean water extracted in the process can be also re-used, sent to replenish the aquafer source, or discharged to surface for agricultural purposes. The previously listed additional attributes provide enhanced benefits compared to incumbent approaches.
Recent studies in the company’s labs using real-world brines have shown that highly effective concentration using its forward osmosis process can be readily achieved in the lithium sector.
In many of the test cases it has conducted, over 90% of the water has been removed from the brines. The reduction of water in the brines has led to more than a 10 times increase in lithium concentration.
The company said its test cases suggest that the forward osmosis process may enable easier and lower cost downstream processing of these key materials.
Forward Water CEO Howie Honeyman noted that "laboratory results confirmed that high levels of lithium concentration can be effectively accomplished and will enable new more efficient lithium isolation.”
The company added that this is especially important as the demand for material such as lithium is expected to vastly outstrip supply for many years to come. The world's demand for lithium extraction is growing every day and, especially driven by an increased lithium use in new consumer electronic battery technologies and electric cars, the demand is expected to increase by approximately 800% in the next two decades as well as outpace hard-rock mining.
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