Lithium Extraction from Geothermal Brines in the Salton Sea Region; Understanding the Current Impact of Lithium Extraction to Indigenous People of Jujuy, Argentina Using Actor-Network Theory

Lithium has become such an important material in our life. From pacemakers to phones to electric vehicles, lithium has been a vital source for electrification. However, future prospects have suggested that the demand for lithium will overtake the supply of extracted lithium. One solution for lithium extraction is through lithium-containing brine located underground. My STS research project is motivation for my technical project. The most common way for brine-extracted lithium to be effectively purified is through evaporation ponds, a very water-intensive and land-expensive process that damages ecosystems and nearby communities. My technical project helps address these concerns by providing an alternative solution to lithium-brine extraction by reducing water and land costs. Both projects reflect the challenges that can occur as a result of technology and finding new solutions to help reduce and mitigate those challenges.
In my STS research project, I examined the impact of lithium brine extraction in the Jujuy Province of Argentina, a hotspot for lithium extraction. With Argentina becoming rich with lithium, economic benefits have been incentivized to foreign companies. However, communities in Jujuy are faced with negative impacts from lithium extraction, including loss of land and water scarcity. Using Actor-Network Theory, I aimed to identify the most prevalent actors—including indigenous communities, provincial government, federal government, transnational and mining companies, and United Nations—to better understand the root problems of why the indigenous communities in Jujuy are being threatened by lithium extraction. My STS research illustrates that many interconnected actors operate with one another, influencing each other when one is affected. This led to the discovery of problems from the provincial government and corporate entities and how remediation of these actors can lead to a less hostile impact on indigenous communities.
In the technical project, we, the lithium extraction team, designed a lithium carbonate processing plant that uptakes cooled geothermal brine, previously used by a geothermal power plant, and to perform direct lithium extraction before pumping the spent brine back into the ground for future processes. Direct lithium extraction removes the requirement of large evaporation ponds and high freshwater cost to be more environmentally friendly. Citric acid and iron (II) chloride is used to help promote lithium ions to adsorb into iron phosphate lattices, capturing the lithium while ignoring the rest of the brine. Lithium captured is then released and mixed with sodium carbonate to produce lithium carbonate, which undergoes stages of flashing, filtering, and drying to obtain a battery-grade purity of 99.50 percent weight. Key results of the project led to the discovery of economic failure, with the majority of operating costs coming from citric acid. This results in a requirement for further laboratory testing for cheaper alternative mediators .
Working on these projects have demonstrated the requirement for engineers to innovate but also the need to solve problems previous engineers failed to solve or recognize. While chemical engineering is notorious for producing processing plants that can easily harm the environment and nearby communities, engineering ethics helps realize what the problems are and how they could or might be mitigated. Engineering ethics does not only provide insight into the people influenced by technology, but it helps shape the reason why people are influenced by technology. This ultimately leads to root problems, the fundamental problems that is occurring between society and technology. My STS research paper helps identify the root problems in Jujuy, and my technical project provides a possible technical solution to address the problem.
I would like to acknowledge Assistant Professor Benjamin Laugelli and Professor William Wilhelm Jr. for their contributions in teaching ethics relating to engineers and corporations. I would also like to thank Assistant Professor William Davis for his continuous guidance through the STS research project from prospectus to report. I am appreciative of Associate Professor Geoff Geise, Associate Professor Gary Koenig, and the TELEPORT team for providing the necessary direct lithium extraction research to perform the technical project. I would like to thank Professor of Practice Ronald Unnerstall for his chemical process safety & ethics, and finally Academic General Faculty and Lecturer Eric Anderson for his guidance throughout all stages of the technical project.

School of Engineering and Applied Science
Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering
Technical Advisor: Eric Anderson
STS Advisor: William Davis
Technical Team Members: Jasper Bennett, Patrick Boyd, Ian Forrer, and Mia Park