Reuters reports that IBAT started its proprietary direct lithium extraction (DLE) process at a facility in Utah with the aim to produce 5.000 tons of lithium per year. As the EV market is expected to grow over the coming years, the DLE industry is also expected to reach around 10 billion USD per year in terms of revenue, as lithium miners look to improve the speed and efficiency with which they are able to produce the critical mineral.

Direct lithium extraction is said to be more efficient than traditional pond lithium extraction, which implies submerging the ore into a special kind of brine that enables the separation of the lithium from hard rock deposits. Around 50% of the lithium is actually lost from using ponds, whereas with DLE, only about 10% of the material is being wasted.

IBAT's strategy is different from the competition, which tried to develop stationary plants with large capacities, sometimes in 20.000 tons of lithium per year. Instead, the Canadian company uses smaller, portable facilities, with a capacity of 5.000 tons, which can be moved around from deposit to deposit, making the purification and production process more efficient.

These modular plants can be stacked, if necessary and only 18 months are required from building the facilities to begin operations.

Paris-based Eramet is another direct lithium extraction company that spent around 900 million USD over the past 10 years on its own DLE project, which could be implemented later this year in Argentina to produce lithium carbonate.