IfM “Buns” Talk: Analysing Process Models for Lithium Recovery from Wastewater Sources

Please join us this Friday, March 28, 2025 at the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), as NEWP Lab director Dr. Nathanial Cooper delivers the Friday “Buns” Talk, “Analysing Process Models for Lithium Recovery from Wastewater Sources.”

What does it mean to situate lithium recovery within a broader research agenda, one focused on resource recovery, industrial decarbonization, and the development of circular, domestically resilient supply systems?
Towards sustainable energy futures, global demand for lithium continues to rise. As countries pursue net-zero Carbon energy futures, substantial changes to infrastructure has thrown Lithium’s value to energy storage technologies into the public eye. Its utility and value in the manufacture and maintenance of electric vehicles, renewable energy storage, and broader, grid-scale electrification aims are often much at odds with sustainable vision for the future: current extraction methods face environmental, social, and supply chain challenges. In view of these substantial misalignments, Dr Cooper’s discussion will hold both of these challenging issues to discuss how advanced separation technologies present emerging technical opportunities to address and improve these conditions.

Dr. Cooper will discuss how work moving forward from this contribution must further explore how unconventional water sources (including seawater, wastewater streams from manufacturing plants and oil and gas effluent streams) may contribute to reducing pressure on future lithium extraction and shifting this landscape. Building on the recent article “Viability assessment of lithium recovery from unconventional saline water sources“ published in Desalination, in which Dr Cooper and coauthors Boreum Lee, Sohum K. Patel, Li Wang, Paul Westerhoff, Menachem Elimelech evaluated ion exchange and electrochemical intercalation pathways across contrasting feedstocks, Dr. Cooper’s talk will extend conversations on the near-term viability of waste water valorisation systems and the critical technical constraints which govern scalability [1].

Dr Cooper will draw on process modeling, techno-economic analysis, and life cycle assessment to outline potential pathways which move beyond component-level innovation toward process integration and design under real-world constraints, highlighting multiscale modeling as a pathways to assess performance and identify both actionable research priorities and infrastructure-relevant pathways. He will outline two promising approaches: ion exchange resins and electrochemical intercalation systems, with a focus on their scalability, environmental performance, and discuss their potential integration into existing energy infrastructure.

The talk will invite discussion on the practical barriers to lithium recovery from low-concentration, high-complexity water streams, with particular attention to energy demand, selectivity, and material stability as governing design constraints. Framed through a systems-level lens, Dr. Cooper will highlight how these challenges can be rigorously evaluated using integrated process modeling coupled with techno-economic and life cycle assessment, enabling not only comparative analysis but the identification of deployable, infrastructure-relevant solutions. In doing so, the discussion will emphasize the importance of moving beyond isolated technological advances toward coordinated, scalable process designs capable of supporting resilient and circular supply chains.

This perspective reflects ongoing work in the NEWP Lab at the water–energy nexus, where research is focused on linking resource recovery with energy systems through multiscale, systems-driven methodologies. By embedding process design within economic and environmental performance frameworks, this work advances a research agenda centered on implementation, industrial decarbonization, and domestic resource resilience. Dr. Cooper’s talk will underscore how such approaches can translate emerging separation technologies into real-world engineering solutions, contributing to the development of sustainable infrastructure and positioning resource recovery as a critical component of future energy systems.