News

The construction of the Unlimited pilot plant for the extraction of lithium has been successfully completed. The work was carried out under the leadership of KIT in cooperation with the collaborative partners. The demonstrator is currently located at the Bruchsal test site.

The International Lithium Association (ILiA) is the global trade association for the lithium industry and represents the entire lithium value chain. The Association was established in 2021 as an international not-for-profit industry association run by and for its members.

Pumping up thermal water, separating lithium, and using it to produce batteries for electric mobility – the idea of lithium as an environmentally compatible and regionally available by-product of geothermal energy plants appears highly promising. However, it has not been clear so far whether domestic lithium extraction is really worthwhile. A team of researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has now summarized the state of the art, analyzed raw materials markets, and assessed technologies. According to them, it might be possible in theory to extract thousands of tons of lithium every year in Germany, but crucial aspects still need to be clarified.

Together with the French start-up GEOLITH, EnBW succeeded in extracting lithium from the Bruchsal brine for the first time - although on a smaller scale.

Geothermal heat from deep subsurface will become even more important in the future: Thereby, the extracted heat can supply neighborhoods and industry - via heating networks, completely without CO2 emissions and independent of domestic sources. Until now, coal or gas had to be burned for this purpose. On September 8, 2022, Minister President Winfried Kretschmann visited the geothermal plant in Bruchsal, which is currently operated by the EnBW as well as the Bruchsal city utility. For some time now, the geothermal site has been supplying the nearby police barracks with heat, and since 2021 has also been producing lithium for car batteries.

In view of the rising global demand for lithium, the Mexican government has founded a state-owned company to extract and market the light metal. The raw material, which is important for electric cars, will in future be produced and marketed exclusively by the company Litio para México (Lithium for Mexico, or LitioMx for short), according to a decree issued by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Germany's automotive industry heavyweights, the Volkswagen Group and Mercedes-Benz, want to cooperate more closely with Canada in the future. During Chancellor Olaf Scholz's (SPD) visit to Canada, both companies signed declarations of intent on electromobility in Toronto on Tuesday.

A consortium of in total twelve European universities and companies, including Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW) and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), is currently planning to establish the first lithium supply chain in Europe. The goal of the EU-funded "LiCORNE" research project is to increase Europe's lithium processing and refining capacity to produce battery-grade chemicals from ores, brines, and off-specification battery cathode materials.

On Thursday, August 4, 2022, the second UnLimited General Assembly was held at the Innovation Campus of Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW) in Karlsruhe.

In addition to the existing "News" section, so-called one-pagers can now also be accessed on the UnLimited website. These feature short essays by the individual project partners with a scientific-technical focus - summarized on one page.