The growth of Li-ion batteries creates surging demand for lithium, but there is an increasing need for extraction methods that are efficient, sustainable, and versatile across different environments and regions. This article highlights how the emergence of direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies will allow producers to satisfy these needs while scaling up to meet global lithium demand in the coming decade.
As global demand for lithium grows into the coming decade, there is increasing desire for lithium production that is fast, sustainable, and economical. Particular attention has been paid to direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies for how well they meet these requirements and for their potential to disrupt the wider lithium market. IDTechEx's newly updated "Direct Lithium Extraction 2026-2036: Technologies, Players, Forecasts" report details how the emergence of DLE will grow the lithium market to US$52 billion in value by 2036, driven by the technology's efficiency, sustainability, and market versatility.
The growth of the DLE market is driven by technical, market, and supply chain factors, Source: IDTechEx
Growing lithium demand in a volatile global marketplace
As the Li-ion battery industry expands with increasing investment into electric vehicles and battery energy storage systems (BESS), there is greater impetus to scale lithium production to meet demand. Conventional lithium extraction processes, namely brine evaporation and hard rock mining, are mature and widely commercialized, but both have their own shortcomings and constraints, which make them challenging to scale.
Hard rock lithium is less prevalent in nature and is concentrated in just a few key regions globally. Its extraction and eventual conversion into battery-grade lithium relies on high-impact mining practices and extensive downstream processing (much of which is controlled by China). Meanwhile, brine evaporation processes can take up to 12-24 months to extract lithium - a timeframe not suited to meeting rapidly expanding market demand. It is also a generally less efficient process, which requires specific brine conditions for viable production.
In addition, the global lithium market has exhibited considerable price volatility over the last five years, and volatility is likely to remain a feature of the market moving forward. Therefore, resource owners are not only looking for extraction processes that can overcome the hurdles faced by hard rock mining and brine evaporation, but also processes that can produce lithium at low costs and remain profitable in the long-term. IDTechEx's new "Direct Lithium Extraction 2026-2036: Technologies, Players, Forecasts" report finds that DLE technologies will provide an emerging option for resource owners to meet all of these needs.
The appeal of fast, efficient, and sustainable lithium production
DLE technologies make use of specialized processes and materials, such as sorbents, solvents, or membranes, to enable the selective extraction of lithium from brines. The result is an efficient extraction process that does not require evaporation ponds, significantly reducing the footprint of lithium production and enabling it to take place across different areas and climates.
DLE processes frequently boast lithium recovery rates of over 80%, a notable improvement on the 40-60% recovery achieved by brine evaporation. This means less brine needs to be taken out of the environment for every tonne of lithium produced, while brines that have been stripped of their lithium can be fed back into the ecosystem.
These factors come together to make DLE a generally more sustainable production route than either brine evaporation or hard rock mining. Sustainability is of increasing importance across all elements of the battery supply chain, particularly with the introduction of measures such as battery passports, which is likely to grow interest and investment in DLE projects.
The selectivity of DLE also leads to significantly faster production timelines on the order of just hours to days. In contrast to the years required for brine evaporation, DLE provides lithium producers more market flexibility, as they can easily ramp production up or down to more closely match demand. In the long run, such measures could also mitigate some of the consequences of lithium price volatility.
Creating supply opportunities for American and European lithium
For a typical brine evaporation process to be economical, it must make use of brines that have sufficiently high lithium concentrations and low quantities of contaminants such as magnesium, potassium, boron, or dissolved solids. This restricts brine lithium production to just a handful of countries which have both the right climate and brine makeup, namely Argentina, Chile, and China.
However, the enhanced selectivity of DLE technology creates opportunities for more brine types to undergo lithium extraction. DLE processes are more tolerant to contaminants, including heavier contaminants such as hydrocarbons, and can remain economical when brines have lithium contents as low as 50 mg/L. This includes geothermal brines and oilfield brines which are otherwise inaccessible to lithium extraction.
Two regions that IDTechEx's new report forecasts will see major benefits from this will be Europe and North America, which have prevalent sources of geothermal and oilfield brines respectively. Both these regions are increasingly seeking to localize and secure their battery supply chains, and enabling domestic lithium production at scale through DLE is likely to be a key step within that.
IDTechEx's lithium market outlook
The widespread adoption of DLE will rely on overcoming some of the challenges these processes still face, including their lower maturity and the costs and R&D associated with novel lithium-selective materials. However, the technology is seeing accelerating development and continued buy-in from lithium project developers, with a range of new DLE projects expected to come online in the next 10 years, signalling its expected impact on the future lithium market.
"Direct Lithium Extraction 2026-2036: Technologies, Players, Forecasts" brings together all of the above trends and more, highlighting how the global lithium market will grow to US$52 billion in value by 2036, and how DLE will emerge as a leading lithium extraction method. The IDTechEx report breaks down key demand trends, benchmarks the performance of DLE technologies, and provides greater depth into individual DLE players, projects, business models, and processes. 10-year granular forecasts for production quantities and market size are provided for the global lithium market and for DLE specifically. These are segmented by DLE technology type, brine type, and region, detailing the key contributors towards market growth.
For more information on this report, including downloadable sample pages, please visit www.IDTechEx.com/LithiumExtraction, or for the full portfolio of research available from IDTechEx, including materials, critical minerals, energy storage, and electric vehicles, see www.IDTechEx.com.
