Lilac raised $150 million for sustainable lithium extraction tech
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Dave Snydacker is CEO and founder of Lilac Solutions, a lithium extraction startup based in Oakland, California.
Courtesy: Lilac Solutions Inc.
As consumers, we rely on lithium-ion batteries to power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles. Automakers are struggling to secure the right partnerships in order to meet rising demand.
Today, this presents an economic challenge. The longer-term issue is that lithium mining can have severe consequences for the environment. Evaporating lithium from the subsurface brines or mining hardrock to get it in large quantities is required. These are saltwater ponds located in deserts.
Politicians are working to accelerate the transition from gasoline-powered cars to electric. President Joe Biden is aiming for half of all new passenger vehicle sales in the U.S. to be electric by 2030, and California and New York have taken steps to effectively ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars in a matter of years.
This all means more batteries. Climate-conscious engineers in Silicon Valley are working to develop a better way to extract this key ingredient.
Lilac Solutions in Oakland, California is currently closing a $150M funding round. This will allow them to build technology to dramatically reduce the need for freshwater and land to extract lithium in continental brines. The round is being led by Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon Capital and T. Rowe Price.
Lilac founder and CEO Dave Snydacker stated that his company can extract twice as much lithium in a 1-acre system than the traditional process would from a 10,000-acre facility equipped with an evaporation pool. The 35-person company developed ion exchange beads, which are an alternative to traditional evaporation methods for lithium extraction. These beads are identical to one-millimeter white grains. They are made from porous, but strong, ceramic materials.
Company loads beads into large tanks that contain a brine supply. The brine is pumped through the tanks and the beads are able to absorb the lithium while rejecting other contaminants like calcium, sodium, magnesium, and boron. To produce lithium chloride, the system first flushes beads with hydrochloric acids. Then it converts that into lithium powder for automakers to make their batteries.
Clay Dumas from Lowercarbon said, “We don’t think California or New York will achieve their electric car goals without a tech like this.” Dumas stated that his company has made more investments in Lilac than any other company and believes the technology is central to solving U.S. supply chains problems which could hinder American competitiveness.
‘Many have tried to do this’
Lilac’s ion-exchange beads can be reused hundreds of times before they need to be replaced. They are then sent back to the factory to be melted and transformed into new beads.
Snydacker explained that this is something many people have tried. Lilac created a bead with the correct chemical properties to commercially produce lithium for the first-time.
It plans to triple its workforce in the next 12 months. To complement its U.S. pilot project, it will develop pilot lithium projects for Argentina and Chile. It is currently sending samples of lithium to automakers and battery manufacturers.
Matthew Nordan (Managing Director of Prime Impact Fund) stated that Lilac’s process uses less water, more renewable energy, and also addresses the issue of salt waste. It can also meet a customer’s need for speed.
Nordan is a Lilac board member and said, “If you take a look at the way we make lithium for battery today, much of it happens where the good Lord saw fit to place lakes of lithium.” Companies dig lines and pump huge amounts of water out of the ground. The viscous liquid is then pumped into trucks that transport it. The salt they leave behind is salty, salty, salty. Salt can then flow into farms every time it rains.
He said that Lilac takes everything it can from continental brine but doesn’t use it and returns it to the place it found it. Nordan stated that without increased production of lithium, automakers will see steep increases in costs.
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence forecasts that there will be a lack of lithium by 2025. This would mean 189,000 tonnes. Globally, there were 177,000 tonnes of lithium in 2015.
Benchmark Mineral CEO Simon Moores said via email, “This is an excellent example of how fast and consistent demand for lithium evolves.” “It is becoming mainstream at a pace that few other commodities have ever experienced.” This is all thanks to the electric vehicle revolution powered by lithium ion batteries.
Benchmark data indicates that lithium makes up 5% for the price of a car’s lithium-ion battery.
Moores stated that if automakers fail to get control of their raw materials, then “their lithium ion battery cost will likely increase in the future, bucking 20 years worth of declining battery prices.”
Lilac has received participation from previous investors The Engine and Breakthrough Energy Ventures as well as Valor Equity Partners, an early backer of Tesla.
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