{"id":234304,"date":"2026-03-31T02:23:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/hygroscopic-salts-pull-lithium-from-mining-waste-using-only-moisture-from-air"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:23:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:23:11","slug":"hygroscopic-salts-pull-lithium-from-mining-waste-using-only-moisture-from-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/hygroscopic-salts-pull-lithium-from-mining-waste-using-only-moisture-from-air","title":{"rendered":"Hygroscopic salts pull lithium from mining waste using only moisture from air"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/hygroscopic-salts-pull-lithium-from-mining-waste-using-only-moisture-from-air.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The world cannot have enough of the third element on the periodic table. From smartphones and laptops to state-of-the-art EVs, all are powered by lithium batteries. The demand for metal is only going to rise, and projected values suggest nearly a triple increase in demand by 2030. The traditional process of lithium mining is both water and energy-hungry. One such step is the dissolution of lithium salts from other competing minerals during the separation process.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-026-70720-9\" target=\"_blank\">study<\/a> published in <i>Nature Communications<\/i>, researchers present a clever way to harness the <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news\/2026-01-vast-lithium-faster-cleaner-method.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">deliquescence<\/a> of lithium chloride hydrate (LHT)\u2014a unique ability to naturally pull moisture from the air to dissolve itself\u2014to extract and concentrate lithium from mining waste while leaving behind unwanted minerals.<\/p>\n<p>The method achieved up to 97% lithium recovery with an increase in the lithium purity by 1,500 times, producing a liquid concentrate with lithium levels reaching 97,000 parts per million, which was more than twice as concentrated as the standard solutions used in battery processing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The world cannot have enough of the third element on the periodic table. From smartphones and laptops to state-of-the-art EVs, all are powered by lithium batteries. The demand for metal is only going to rise, and projected values suggest nearly a triple increase in demand by 2030. The traditional process of lithium mining is both [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1523,1512],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-computing","category-mobile-phones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}